American Folk Songs for Children

I own a lot of song books for use with my children (we homeschool), including lots of specialty Waldorf books. I love many of them, but this is the book that my whole family seems to enjoy the most. The songs are SO catchy and delightful to sing with the kids. Ruth Seeger specifically selected folk songs that were beautiful, fun/easy to sing, and lend themselves well to improvising lyrics/motions with children. The kids love making up new verses for all the songs, and we often sing them while we are out doing other things (going on walks, etc.). The piano accompaniment pieces are deceptively simple yet provide a rich sound (if one decides to use them). There are also chords provided, and sometimes I play my ukulele along with the songs. Also, every page is illustrated with quaint and charming drawings by the magnificent illustrator Barabara Cooney! It must have been one of her first projects! I love everything about this book! If you can read music, buy it!

I bought this book because I'm getting my kodaly certification levels. It has alot of good resources.

We're using this with the CD (bought separately) for a music class. Great simple songs to sing as a family or class with multiple ages. Easy foundation for learning harmonies and lyric manipulation too.

It is wonderful to see this album in print. There is nothing like it in the repertoire for children, and of course there has never been any composer to rival the diverse works of Ruth Crawford Seeger. My family members in their 90s enjoy the pieces, perhaps remembering some of them, as much as the young children.Thank you for making the collection available.

A must have for educators and lovers of children's music! Ruth Crawford Seeger's philosophy and organization is supreme and still highly applicable to teaching today. Enhance this by purchasing the recordings made by Peggy & Mike Seeger in the 1980's.

We've found many of my son's choir group songs in here. A great resource!

Gave as present.

The book gets 5 stars. It's a great one! The reprint gets 1 star at best. It looks like it was scanned at poor resolution and printed with a fuzzy ink jet printer. It serves its purpose, but for a book written with such care, this reprint looks as if it were done with no care at all. Buyer beware. And shame on the reprinter, I could have made a sharper copy with my cheap home printer/scanner than this supposedly "professional" one. Okay, rant over.