Oh yay! You all are in for a treat…. if you like 1970s children’s literature! Check out the video below!

I’m time traveling back to the 1970s again today with another classic story – Chicken Soup with Rice, by Maurice Sendak. If you’re not familiar with this book, it’s a stroll through the calendar extolling the virtues of chicken soup. It’s not fair, but I don’t associate this book with Sendak as much as Carole King, who sang the song. I don’t know if I ever actually heard the story without the accompanying cassette tape. If you emerged from a 1970s childhood without at least a fondness for King, then you never heard this song. Sendak is also responsible for another of my favorites – Where the Wild Things Are.

This is such a cozy book and song. And it’s catchy. I love it so much that a few years ago I checked out the book and tape from the library and played it over and over for my kids in the car. I’m glad I did that, because now I probably couldn’t get through it once before they were asking me to switch to 101.9.

Tikki Tikki Tembo, no sarembo mari bari puchi pip peri pembo ….. or something like that. This is a great Chinese fable about a boy with a very long name who falls into a well. A bit grim by today’s standards, but the kids with love the rhythm and repetition of the prose.