Happy Adoption Day!

John McCutcheon

I have to start this review by admitting that I'm not the best sight-reader on the planet. In fact, I'm pretty awful at it. What do you want? I'm a drummer. I not only have a tin ear, I have one that was recycled at a cut-rate plant. So, okay, maybe I'm not qualified to be reviewing this book from a musical perspective. But even a drummer can recognize rhythm-- especially when it goes wrong. And there are some places in this book where it goes horribly, horribly wrong. (My nonmusical wife pointed out some of the same lapses in rhythm I had first wondered about.)

And here I offer the same postulate I have been offering, usually unsuccessfully (no matter how right it may be) for years: how you say something is just as important, if not more, than what you say. The message of the book is all well and good, but present it in a clunky manner, and you're either teaching kids to resent the message overall or to enjoy really substandard music. (Doesn't Radio Disney do enough of that already?) Awkwardly-phrased lyrics: not confined to rap any more.