Reviews

When your baby cries there is an almost primal instinct that surfaces to sing softly to them and soothe away their tears.

Those gently hummed melodic tones often work wonders to calm and send baby back into peaceful slumber. Most people would say they were singing a lullaby, but were they?

According to new research nine out of ten British parents are now more likely to sing a favourite pop song or TV theme tune to their children in the place of a traditional lullaby.  And, whilst almost half of the parents surveyed thought lullabies were great for teaching language skills, only one in ten knew the words to a traditional lullaby.

In a quest to stop these time honoured songs disappearing into the mists of time, Sophie Barker, from Grammy Award nominated group Zero 7, has recorded a collection of traditional lullabies and set up a Facebook campaign to ‘Save the Lullaby’.

“The album, ‘Lullaby’, makes a stand for our forgotten bedtime tunes,” says Sophie, “ it reminds parents of the magic and soothing quality of our traditional lullabies – we’ve even included a sing-a-long lyric book for those who are more likely to know the Friends theme tune than Frere Jacques.”

The album is perfect for both babies and toddlers and contains firm favourites such as ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, plus the beautiful ‘Lavenders Blue’ and ‘Brahms Lullaby’. It’s presented as a wonderfully illustrated lyric book with the disc neatly slotted in a pouch in the back. In a sea of brash sounding nursery rhyme and lullaby CD’s this really does stand out.

In addition to the copy we were kindly given, I also have a copy of this wonderful album to giveaway to one lucky UK reader! All you have to do is leave a comment below before midnight on Tuesday 9th March 2010 and tell me, what is your favourite lullaby and why?

The winner will be picked at random.

In the meantime go over to Facebook and join the campaign to Save the Lullaby!

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