Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Billy Kelly’ Category

Vladimir Vagin & Frank Asch–Here Comes the Cat! СЮДА ИДЕТ КОТ! (1989/2011)

Posted in Billy Kelly, Cats, Children's Books, Fears, Frank Asch, McSweeney's, Russia, Vladimir Vagin on October 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BILLY KELLY-“People Really Like Milk” (2009).

I enjoyed Billy Kelly’s song with Davy Jones so much that I investigated him a little further and found this wonderful song.

It’s a poppy folk song about a very important topic: milk, and how much everyone loves it.  Kelly has a great delivery (especially the rhymes with milk) and the song itself is funny and bouncy   It will stay in your head for hours (in a good way).

I really can’t get enough of Billy Kelly.  And if you Google the song you’ll see him performing the it at a kid’s backyard party.  But here’s the official video (which Kelly animated).

[READ: 2011] Here Comes the Cat

Of all of the McSweeney’s McMullens books, this one has been our favorite.  It is a very simple story (told in Russian and English) with only four (English) and three (Russian) words repeated over and over.  And the colophon explains the history: “Here Comes the Cat!, the first ever Soviet/American picture-book collaboration  was originally published by Scholastic in 1989.”

СЮДА ИДЕТ КОТ! is pronounced syu-DAH ee-DYOT KOT! and it along with the translation Here comes the cat! is on every page in both languages (along with some other bilingual phrases–Hello, Mice at Work etc). And on every page, a mouse runs through the mouse village announcing Here Comes the Cat!  The villagers all look surprised as they run across the city with the news.  But what will happen when the shadow of the cat appears in the village?

This is a wonderful story, simple, yet full of humor and cleverness.  It tells a story that not everything is what it seems.  And the ending is quite funny. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Sheila Heti &Clare Rojas–We Need a Horse (2011)

Posted in Billy Kelly, Children's Books, Clare Rojas, Davy Jones, Flight of the Conchords, McSweeney's, Sheila Heti, Surreal on October 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BILLY KELLY with DAVY JONES-“Me and My Brand New Haircut” (2010).

This is a fun and silly song in which the beat is kept by scissors.  It’s a very light song (as befits a song about a haircut).  Indeed it’s amazing how much you can sing about a haircut.

The lines that Davy speaks (there’s some call and response) reminds me a lot of Flight of the Conchords.  This is the kind of silly kids song that I really like.

I see that Billy Kelly has a few albums out.  He may be worth investigating further.

[READ: sometime in 2011] We Need a Horse

Like with Arthur Bradford, this book is Sheila Heti’s first children’s book.  I haven’t enjoyed Heti’s adult work all that much, but it’s hard to disagree with the message of this book.  The message is simple enough–you are what you are and what you are is valuable.  But I have to admit that the first few pages are a little unexpected (a horse talking to light, a sheep with a tennis racket, etc).  Nevertheless, it has a happy ending. (more…)

Read Full Post »