Reviewed by Gregory Keer
Heading the year-end recommendations is Lisa Sniderman’s What Are Dreams Made Of? A wildly creative brew of story and song by the San Francisco-based 2012 finalist for the John Lennon Songwriting Award, among other honors, Sniderman provides a sequel to Is Love a Fairy Tale?, which follows the adventures of Aoede the Muse and her adventures in Wonderhaven. What Are Dream Made Of? is an imagination-inspiring, sometimes trippy journey through the “land of darkness and light” that sounds like something Pink Floyd, Regina Spektor, and J.R.R. Tolkien might dream up if they were aiming for elementary-school age kids.
If you’re looking for more story-and-music blends that appeal to the preschool on up crowd, sample the wares from The Secret Mountain, which releases a range of projects that travel across diverse cultures. Available in book-CD or e-book packages are W is for Wapiti: An Alphabet Songbook and Songs from a Journey with a Parrot – Lullabies and Nursery Rhymes from Brazil and Portugal. A Gift for Sophie, one of The Secret Mountain’s newest productions from Canadian singer-songwriter Gilles Vigneault and illustrator Stéphane Jorisch, offers insight into the power of gift giving in the tale about two friends. Musical guests include Martha Wainwright, Thomas Hellman, Paul Campagne and Jessica Vigneault.