Sing Books with Emily, the Blog

One of my favorite little songs to sing is The Little Turtle.

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“The Little Turtle” is a singable poem, written by Vachel Lindsay:

The Little Turtle
Poem Vachel Lindsay

There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at a mosquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn’t catch me.

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In a few places, I found this subtitle for the poem:
“A Recitation for Martha Wakefield, Three Years Old”

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Sing-along with me, “Little Turtle” on the SingBooksWithEmily MySpace page:
http://www.myspace.com/singbookswithemily
(Just scroll down the list of songs in the song box and you’ll find it there!)

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The poem was first published in Mr. Lindsay’s book ”The Golden Whales of California and Other Rhymes in the American Language” (New York: Macmillan, 1920): and then in his ”Collected Poems” (New York: Macmillan, 1923).
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1308.html

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You will find “The Little Turtle” in oodles of compilations of children’s poetry, including:

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A Children’s Treasury of Poems
Illustrated by Linda Bleck
The Little Turtle is printed and illustrated in this book (which does not feature page numbers)

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A Family of Poems (My Favorite Poetry for Children)
Selected by Caroline Kennedy
Illustrated by Jon Muth
The Little Turtle is printed and illustrated on p.48

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Childcraft, Volume 1, Poems of Early Childhood
Published by Field Enterprises Educational Corporation
Words and Music by Various Artists
Illustrated by Various Artists
The Little Turtle is printed and illustrated on p. 96
(The pictures above show the binding and title page)

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Found on p. 96 of Childcraft, Volume 1, Poems of Early Childhood, Illustrated by Priscilla Pointer

The Little Turtle
Poem by Vachel Linsay
Traditional Tune
Illustrated by Priscilla Pointer
From: Childcraft, Volume 1, Poems of Early Childhood, p. 96
Sing LITTLE TURTLE with Emily, here:
https://soundcloud.com/singbookswithemily/there-was-a-little-turtle-eleg-2010

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(You can use all the tunes mentioned in this post to sing this rhyme…it’s a two-for-one!)

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Read a detailed biography of poet Vachel Lindsay on the website of the Poetry Foundation:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=80796

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A shorter, interesting biography on PoemHunter:
http://www.poemhunter.com/vachel-lindsay/biography/

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I found this online about John Alan Carpenter’s musical setting for “The Little Turtle,”
“Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) had wanted Carpenter, a long-time friend, to set his verse for nearly a decade before Carpenter finally composed “The Little Turtle” in 1926. Carpenter, ever drawn to children’s verse, chose a rather uncharacteristic poem Lindsay had written as “a recitation for Martha Wakefield, three years old.” Pollack writes that the “tune is folkish but somewhat jazzed up, with snazzy syncopations in the vocal lines and blue notes in the accompaniment. It is a children’s song for the jazz age and one of Carpenter’s most delightful.” The song is unpublished.”
http://www.dramonline.org/albums/songs-of-john-alden-carpenter/notes

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But I just happened to have been familiar with this recording, which uses a similar tune, sung by a classical baritone, to the one I had learned for this song:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-Turtle/dp/B000QWYQ66/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1282644296&sr=8-2

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You can also find a composition (sung by a woman who’s credit I couldn’t find…) for “The Little Turtle” on,

This is a fabulous CD with 90 songs delightfully and simply sung (so many children’s CDs over produce the songs, making them far too sugary and yuck). “90 Nifty Songs” has helped me learn or remember the tunes so MANY a snappy song.
The complete song list is on Peter Moses’s website:
http://www.petermoses.com/90niftysongs.htm

Peter Moses Website:
http://www.petermoses.com/

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Related Posts

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POETRY SINGABLE POETRY IN COMPILATIONS
An list of  singable poems from compilations of poetry for children
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/singable-poetry-a-list-of-poems-that-can-be-sung-from-illustrated-compilations-of-poetry-and-singable-picture-books/

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POETRY, SINGABLE POETRY IN INDIVIDUALLY ILLUSTRATED SINGABLE PICTURE BOOKS
A list of individually illustrated poems that have been set to music and can be sung
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/poems-individually-illustrated-spb/

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EDUCATIONAL CONTENT
A list of SPBs with fun and sneakily educational content.  The kids won’t even know they’re learning!
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/singable-picture-books-with-sneaky-educational-content/

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The Little Turtle, a Singable Poem Song Sheet from Childcraft, for Poetry Month
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/the-little-turtle-a-singable-poem-song-sheet-from-childcraft-for-poetry-month/