Sing Books with Emily, the Blog

You may have noticed that I accidentally mixed up the weeks.  This is from last week…a great song list!

Today was the second to last “Sing Books” gathering with my daughter’s K class at Tuckahoe.  It does my heart some real good to know that the kids are skipping off into the world armed with a truck load of songs to sing!

We started off singing “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor” printed in the book “Emma’s Poem“ because NPR reported this morning that this day in 1877 the 214 crates containing the unassembled Statue of Liberty arrived in New York City from France.

• Emma’s Poem (Book by Linda Glaser, Illustrated by Claire A. Nivola.  This books is about Emma Lazarus and her poem, and includes a printing of the poem, “The New Colossus,” Words by Emma Lazarus, the last 5 lines of which were set to music by Irving Berlin)
• A-You’re Adorable (Words and Music by Buddy Kaye, Fred Wise, and Sidney Lippman, Illustrated by Emily Leatha Everson Gleichenhaus)
• ZYX’s (Traditional Tune, Illustrated by Emily Leatha Everson Gleichenhaus) (The children broke out into this song and sang it all by themselves.  Wonderful!) (Sing this traditional tune long with me at: http://www.myspace.com/singbookswithemily)
• All God’s Critters (Words and Music by Bill Staines, Illustrated by Kadir Nelson)
• Inch by Inch: The Garden Song (Words and Music by David Mallett, Illustrated by Ora Eitan) (A post about this Singable Picture Book will be published soon!)
• Easter Parade (Words and Music by Irving Berlin, Illustrated by Lisa McCue)
• All God’s Critters (Words and Music by Bill Staines, Illustrated by Kadir Nelson)
• A Fairy Went A-Marketing (Poem by Rose Fyleman, Illustrated by Jachimael Henterly, Musical Setting can be found by Ginger Sands on her collection “The Gift of Make Believe“)
• Over the Rainbow (Words and Music by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg, Illustrated by Eric Puybaret)
• “Sesame Street Theme” (Words by Bruce Hart, Jon Stone, and Joe Raposo, Music by Joe Raposo, Published in The Songs of Sesame Street in Poems and Pictures, Illustrated by Normand Chartier (A post about this Singable Picture Book will be published in the next couple of days!)
• “Rubber Duckie” (Words by Jeff Moss, Published in The Songs of Sesame Street in Poems and Pictures, Illustrated by Normand Chartier (A post about this Singable Picture Book will be published in the next couple of days!)

 The New Colossus
Poem by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The last 5 lines of this poem were set to music in the song “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor” by the great American Songwriter Irving Berlin.

This poem has in many ways come to represent the voice of the Stature of Liberty.  The poem is engraved on a plaque and mounted on the wall near an entrance to the statue’s pedestal.