Singing about Elephants and Spiders

Running with books can be dangerous. Like running with scissors. At the library Baby 2Flowers pulled a great big book off the shelf and was running around with it when she tripped. The book was almost as tall as Baby 2Flowers and one edge hit the floor before she finished falling while the other edge slammed into her face. She had a big bruise over her eye for about a week and you would think we'd leave the book at the library. But no, we checked it out.

The book Baby 2Flowers found is De Colores and Other Latin-American Folk Songs. I love the songs, and she loves the pictures. The pictures have lots of bright colors and children in them. The songs are Spanish childrens songs, printed with sheet music and English translations.

I was particularly excited to find the song "Los Elefantes" (The Elephants) in this book because I learned it when I was a missionary, but only remembered a few lines of it. It is a wonderfully nonsensical song:

Un elefante se balanceaba  (one elephant balanced)
sobre la tela de una arana,  (on the web of a spider)
Como veia que no se caia  (and when he saw that he didn't fall)
fue a llamar a otro elefante  (he called another elephant)

Then you start the next verse with "dos elefantes..." ("two elephants...") and so on until you're ready to stop, then the third and fourth lines go like this:

Y como veian que si se caian  (and when they saw that they did fall)
No llamaron otro elefantes  (the didn't call any other elephants)

I also found "Los Pollitos" (The Baby Chicks), which my family calls the "Pio Pio song," and "The Isty Bitsy Spider" in the book. We've already re-checked out the book a few times. I don't want to take it back! My goal is to buy this book when we get a piano so we can play the other songs I don't know and sing them. They are so fun!

Sorry about the volume... it is our first video and we don't have a mic yet.

De Colores and Other Latin-American Folk Songs.

Selected, arranged, and translated by Jose-Luis Orozco.

Illustrationed by Elisa Kleven.

ISBN: 0-613-19510-8