Bringing together scholars from musicology, literature, childhood studies, and theater, this volume examines the ways in which children's musicals tap into adult nostalgia for childhood while appealing to the needs and consumer potential of the child. The contributors take up a wide range of musicals, including works inspired by the books of children's authors such as Roald Dahl, P.L. Travers, and Francis Hodgson Burnett; created by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lionel Bart, and other leading lights of musical theater; or conceived for a cast made up entirely of children. The collection examines musicals that propagate or complicate normative attitudes regarding what childhood is or should be. It also considers the child performer in movie musicals as well as in professional and amateur stage musicals. This far-ranging collection highlights the special place that musical theater occupies in the imaginations and lives of children as well as adults. The collection comes at a time of increased importance of musical theater in the lives of children and young adults.

Children are inherently musical. They respond to music and learn through music. Music expresses children's identity and heritage, teaches them to belong to a culture, and develops their cognitive well-being and inner self worth. As professional instructors, childcare workers, or students looking forward to a career working with children, we should continuously search for ways to tap into children's natural reservoir of enthusiasm for singing, moving and experimenting with instruments. But how, you might ask? What music is appropriate for the children I'm working with? How can music help inspire a well-rounded child? How do I reach and teach children musically? Most importantly perhaps, how can I incorporate music into a curriculum that marginalizes the arts?This book explores a holistic, artistic, and integrated approach to understanding the developmental connections between music and children. This book guides professionals to work through music, harnessing the processes that underlie music learning, and outlining developmentally appropriate methods to understand the role of music in children's lives through play, games, creativity, and movement. Additionally, the book explores ways of applying music-making to benefit the whole child, i.e., socially, emotionally, physically, cognitively, and linguistically.

Children are naturally fascinated with sound and movement play as they teach themselves how to function in the world. Every child has the potential to learn music. Without early, sequential music development guidance, however, the potential for true music understanding and enjoyment is left underdeveloped among most children. This music series, based on A Music Learning Theory for Newborn and Young Children and years of practical and experimental research, is designed to assist teachers, parents, and caregivers of newborn and young children in the development of basic music skills such as singing, rhythm chanting, and moving. By using this compilation of music and movement activities you will discover the pure delight of playing music and movement games with children. You will learn how to provide a rich music environment for them, how to listen and understand the sounds they make, and how to reinforce each child's music and movement creativity through imitation and improvisation using audiation, the ability each of us has to think music.

So your child wants to be a star? But what does it really take? Money? Looks? Tons of time? Not necessarily. Nancy Carson, a children's agent who has worked in the industry for more than twenty-five years and has guided the careers of such celebrities as Britney Spears, Mischa Barton, and even a young Cynthia Nixon, dishes the facts on what it takes to break your child into the entertainment industry. The first parents' guide to getting kids into the business written by one of the industry's top children's agents, Raising a Star is a complete step-by-step guide that will help parents navigate the murky waters of show business. From how to find the right representative to what producers and directors are really looking for in children today, Nancy Carson offers practical advice and anecdotes culled from her years of experience. Raising a Star is the most candid and informative guide for parents who want to help make their child a star.

While spending Christmas in 1939 with a well-meaning aunt, a young boy who does not believe in Santa Claus has an unusual experience that changes his thinking.

The Oxford Handbook of Children's Musical Cultures is a compendium of perspectives on children and their musical engagements as singers, dancers, players, and avid listeners. Over the course of 35 chapters, contributors from around the world provide an interdisciplinary enquiry into the musical lives of children in a variety of cultures, and their role as both preservers and innovators of music. Drawing on a wide array of fields from ethnomusicology and folklore to education and developmental psychology, the chapters presented in this handbook provide windows into the musical enculturation, education, and training of children, and the ways in which they learn, express, invent, and preserve music. Offering an understanding of the nature, structures, and styles of music preferred and used by children from toddlerhood through childhood and into adolescence, The Oxford Handbook of Children's Musical Cultures is an important step forward in the study of children and music.