The Fireside Book of Children's Songs

Rating:
Summary: Good songs, including some hard-to-find
Review: My family has had this book since I was a child. I didn't appreciate it much until recently, when I began to look for children's songbooks for my own children. It has fewer common songs than most songbooks, such as Singing Bee; so it would be best for someone looking for hard-to-find songs or singing games. (It includes a section for singing games, with good descriptions of the actions for the children--mostly circle games, such as The Farmer In the Dell.)

The illustrations are very stylized. Most songs include a sentence or two describing their origins.

Some of its hard-to-find songs that I appreciate include: Frog Went A-Courtin', Aiken Drum, Michael Finnegan, If All the Raindrops, Ain't It Great to be Crazy?, The Animal Fair, and Kookaburra.

It's sections are:
Good Morning and Good Night (18)
Birds and Beasts (20)
Nursery Songs (21)
Silly Songs (20)
Singing Games and Rounds (26)