When I first was contacted about Flower Child, a dvd of children’s poetry on video, I admit I had visions of dirty-nosed hippie children reciting spoken word pieces by the light of lava lamps. I was wayyyy off. The dvd is wonderful.
Classic poems from the likes of Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes are brought to life with beautifully shot footage from director Dorne Pentes, and music from the NYC drumming troupe Mecca Bodega.
It’s artistic but accessible, and my toddler took to it right away. She loved watching the kids dancing, playing, reacting to the narration, all in a gorgeous garden setting. Even if she didn’t understand the alliterative verse or iambic pentameter.
Check out sample clips on the Flower Child website then order off Amazon. Some pieces are more upbeat than others, but overall, this is a good mellow-out dvd to plop the kids down in front of for those days that you just can’t handle one more sing-along video. Which, really, is most days, isn’t it? –Liz