Join Jenkins, a few adult friends, and children from the LaSalle Language Academy of Chicago for a CD filled with multi-lingual and multi-cultural songs, perfect for an afternoon activity time. Sharing Cultures includes songs from many genres; boogie-woogie, bluegrass, gospel, blues jazz, calypso, and even an Irish jig. Songs are presented through spoken word, call-and-response, and instrumental. Listeners are exposed to banjo, guitar, ukulele, piano, fiddle, bass, harmonica, flute, violins, bongo drums, and small percussion instruments.

This recording includes some old familiar children's song, like "Day-o" and "Frere Jacques", but consists primarily of children's songs from all over the world that will bring new fun to your little one. The songs are easy to learn and join right in because of the rhyming, repetition, and often times an explanation from Ella of what she'd like listeners to do before the song begins. For example, in one song Ella asks listeners to repeat after her and then provides the time within the song between her lines for the listeners to repeat aloud. Some songs are sung completely in Spanish, but translations can be found in the cover booklet. The booklet also offers some additional language lessons, such as saying 'thank you' in multiple languages, and numbers to ten in Pig Latin.

Every song provides opportunities for your child to join in the fun and learn something new. Silly sounds abound, such as "Hi ho, the Illa-ally-oh!" in the song, "Big Ship Sails". "I like Names" teaches little ones what a palindrome is and provides multiple examples, like Bob, Ana, Hannah, Mom, and Ada. Can your child think of another palindrome? The spoken word, "Walking Around in Bronzeville," is Ella telling children all of the sites she sees while walking around her neighborhood. Your child can take this concept and make it their own, by telling you or a friend the sites seen from their own neighborhood. Children will also learn about other cultures, such as the names of the Native American tribes, and how to say some simple phrases in Spanish, French, Russian, and a western African language. Geography is also covered, specifically some western African countries and the seven continents.

My niece, Emily, received this CD for her fourth birthday. She put it in the CD player as soon as her birthday party was over, and was humming along with the songs right away. She really liked "Song of the Seven Continents" and was so proud to recite the continents for people a few days later when she had it memorized. Emily wanted to know why North and South America "have to share a name when none of the other continents do." We looked at a world map together, and I asked her what she would name one of them otherwise, and she decided North America should be renamed 'Canada', "because Canada is so big it takes up most of it anyway," and then South America could just be "America."

--Audra

Ella Jenkins is a prominent children's folk singer, whose career has spanned four decades and visited all seven continents. She was dubbed, "The first lady of the Children's folk song" by The Wisconsin State Journal and has appeared on Mr. Rogers and Barney. Jenkins has released a total of 28 records and 2 videos since 1957. Jenkins was also rewarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Recording Academy.