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This Is the Day!
illustrated by Marjorie Priceman
Houghton
Mifflin,
2007
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| From
the
book jacket: |
Do you want a baby?
Step right up!
Pick one out!
They’re
waiting for you to
kiss their toes,
sing lullabies,
and rock them to
sleep.
All you have to do
is make room
on your bike, or
your ship, or your hot air balloon!
Sing along, because
this is the day we give babies away—
tra la and fiddle de
dee.
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| A little
about the book: |
I first heard “This is the day we give babies away” in the
1960’s, and given its catchy tune and unusual lyrics, the song stuck
with me for all these years. After expanding it into a tale of happy
adoptions, I learned more about the song’s origins, thanks to Mark D.
Moss of Sing Out! and Joe
“The Songfinder” Hickerson.
Since the beginning of the 1900’s, and possibly
before, “This is the day” was sung in various parts of the U.S.
The original verse goes like this:
This is the day we give babies away
with a half a pound of tea.
If you know any ladies who want any babies
just send them around to me.
It
may
have originally come to these shores from England. Sung by folks in the
Ozarks, westerners, and soldiers during World War II, it was recorded
first by singer Rosalie Sorrels in “Rosalie’s Songbag” and more
recently in a 1990 release “Be Careful There’s A Baby in the House.” In
“Be Careful” Rosalie Sorrels sings her own humorous version written
with Olive Wooly Burt titled “The Baby Tree.”
When I saw Marjorie Priceman’s artwork for This Is the Day!
I was estatic. She’s brilliant (artistically, of course, and now we
know she’s brilliant mathematically, too!). And, oh my, those babies
are so cute, I wish I could be the lady in the jacket illustration.
You can hear Yonah sing This Is the day!
--and sing along with her on this song, and many other songs, too, on
our CD,
"This Is the Day! Storysongs and Singalongs."
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| From
the reviews: |
"Counting, adding, and the days of the week are introduced in this
quirky traditional song about babies and adoption.... The mildly
nonsensical rhyming text curls around the swirling illustrations as
ladies of various races (some seemingly single and some not) visit a
Bemelmans-inspired home for infants and adopt consecutively growing
numbers of babies. When the final prospective mother declares, “Seven
is heaven,” the ladies relax in a circle, lovingly playing with all of
their tots. Priceman’s dreamlike watercolors are a joy to behold, and
Gershator’s adaptation of the song retains a buoyant musical quality.
While adoption itself receives a relatively light treatment here—each
set of babies is accompanied by a whimsical gift such as milk and
cookies or a bear and a honeybee—young listeners will come away with
the idea that each child is very much wanted and all of the new
families are filled with warmth and love." Kirkus
"Gershator’s cheery adaptation of a
traditional song from the 1900s is perfectly complemented by Priceman’s
breezy watercolor illustrations. A multitude of babies clad in hooded
pink or blue pj’s and tended by loving caretakers is waiting to be
taken home.... Two splashy spreads illustrate each verse, first by
introducing the day of the week and then concluding with the mother
departing with her adopted young. The text swoops through the idyllic
indoor and outdoor scenes to create a lyrical, joyous, and somewhat
silly mood. The characters represent a variety of races and
nationalities, and blended families are the norm. Sharp-eyed readers
will observe that the picture for each day includes an animal that has
the same number of offspring as those taken by the human mother. This
pleasant romp is a natural for baby sing-along programs (sheet music is
included), one-on-one sharing, and lullaby time." School Library Journal
"...The fanciful
verses roll along, moving through days of the week and numbers, with
the first eager parent choosing a single baby on Monday and the final,
Sunday visitor whisking away no fewer than seven. The poem’s glib first
line (“Monday’s the day we give babies away with a half a pound of
tea”) is a bit jarring, but even very young children will quickly grasp
its fanciful, nursery-rhyme spirit, especially in light of Caldecott
Honor Book artist Priceman’s effervescent paintings-- which show
mixed-race families throughout and house the infants in a
Madeline-style mansion teeming with starched servants. Babies small
enough to be dandled to the verses’ lilting rhymths will particularly
enjoy this reassuring confection...."
Booklist
"...I
was not familiar [with the song], so when this book wound up on my
desk, I found it a
little strange. Giving babies away? I didn’t get it. But the author has
framed the song in terms of adoption to create a fantastic picture book
worthy of adding to collections on the subject.
The book
expands the song (The lyrics and piano music are found on the end pages
for those who might want to make this story a musical experience) with
wacky illustrations of various people coming to take the babies who
need homes. Each person takes one more than the last, which makes for
many large, happy families as they drive, ride, sail, or float away
home.
The illustrations have a joyful and musical quality to
them, and they complement the strangeness of the song well with their
dreaminess. The delighted parents and smiling babies save the book from
just seeming weird. Instead the book becomes a silly story of happy
adoptions featuring a multicultural cast of characters." propernoun.net
Art by Marjorie Priceman
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