GETTING TO KNOW YOU!

Wells has illustrated excerpts from well-known songs from Oklahoma, The King and I, Carousel, and South Pacific. In the thick and vibrant colors and large, square format, readers will recognize from My Very First Mother Goose (1996) and Here Comes Mother Goose (1999), her bunnies, guinea pigs, and bison cavort, cuddle, and dance across the pages to Hammerstein’s lyrics. A songbook in a back pocket provides Rodgers’s music (a single line of melody, for vocals). Usually the selection is a single verse, and works perfectly for songs like “Oh! What a Beautiful Morning,” “Oklahoma,” and “Shall We Dance.” However, in too many others, the magic of the music is destroyed in the alteration. “I Whistle a Happy Tune” has lost an entire line, ruining its symmetry. Extremely short versions of “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” and “Some Enchanted Evening” are confusingly abrupt. And tragically, the last segment of “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” rushes to its conclusion: the magically thrice repeated “Don’t you wish’t you’d go on ferever” is written only once on the page. The result is a tune that simply doesn’t work—how does one sing that? Supposedly, these were very deliberate design decisions, and in all other aspects, this is a lovely book—Wells’s warm lines match the mood of the songs perfectly. Families who know these songs might enjoy singing with this as long as they can deal with the missing lyrics. Those unfamiliar with the songs will find the flaws jolting and unsatisfactory. The songbook in the back pocket and serious flaws make this a questionable purchase for libraries. (Nonfiction. 4-8)