Egg Thoughts and Other Frances Songs

Frances the badger, sharp as a tack and vivid, precise. Odd, funny, charming; childhood astutely observed and captured. A favorite character. I think her fictional human counterpart is Ramona Quimby; their nonfictional human counterparts are probably every kid ever. A used copy of this book sells on Amazon for 49 dollars; I can hardly bear to return this to the library.

I conclude with one of Frances' theme songs for a television show.

"Why are all the dogs so nervous?
Why do people howl with fright,
What's he carrying in his thermos,
Where's he hurrying in the night?
Doctor Vampire!

The songs in the Frances books are always cute in small doses, revealing her thoughts and feelings in the moment. But here's a whole book of new ones, and I find them quite meh all strung together without a story to hang them on.

I don't have a record of reading this one to my daughter, so I must have given it a quick look and left it to my wife to do. I don't know what my daughter thought of it, but she never asked me to re-read it to her and that tells me all I need to know.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Egg Thoughts -- Some Kids I Know -- String -- Stone-Kicking Song -- Stupid Old Myself -- Lorna Doone Last Cookie Song -- Na-Na Doll -- My Lost Noah's Ark -- Funeral -- Songs for Television Shows I Would Like to See -- My Friend Thelma -- show more Not-Things -- Chocolate -- Telephone Pole Stone-Throwing Song -- Bees -- A Gloria Song (By Gloria) -- Gloria, My Little Sister -- Summer Goes -- Homework -- Windows -- Sick in Winter -- One Big Rain show less

Everyone loves the little songs that Frances sings to herself in "Bread and Jam" and other Frances books. This title has other poems that (mostly) don't appear in the Frances books along with some cute illustrations. I kind of wish the book had included some of the more famous Frances songs/poems as well as the new stuff.

The poems use some meters/rhyme schemes that aren't the best for reading aloud.