Leave Your Sleep

This might verge on blasphemy, but Natalie Merchant's Leave Your Sleep is the modern answer to Robert Louis Stevenson's A Children's Garden of Verse.  Perhaps she herself realized this and politely nodded to him by opening with 'The Land of Nod.' This collection of classic children's poetry is just wonderful.   Merchant released the album Leave Your Sleep a couple years ago, and now it is beatufully illustrated by the amazing Barbara McClintock.  Merchant describes this as the most ambitious project she has ever attempted.  It shows.  We owe much to her hard work as we are whirled away by poetic magic. It comes complete with a CD, for there is one song for each poem in the book.  Our family favorite is Bleezer's Ice-Cream with its hilarious list of twenty-eight divine creations. Cocoa Mocha Macaroni is at the top.