She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain by Philemen Sturges

She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain by Philemen Sturges, illustrated by Ashley Wolff

Rating: 5 singing stars

Warning: This book/song will get stuck in your head, and you will definitely be singing it to yourself after the kids are tucked in bed, while on a date night with your partner, taking the dogs out for a walk.

That's the bad news.  The good news is that it's a really good book/song to have stuck in your head!  Philomen Sturges changes the words to the old folk song that no one can remember the words to anyway (or is that just me?).  It's a pretty decent length of a book, but the text/lyrics don't get old at all, and I even pretend to play a banjo as if there's a space left to rock out on my nonexistent banjo in front of my highly amused kids.  (I'll have the only kids who play air banjo, not air guitar.  Geeks in training!)  This book is so different from all the others because it's a song, and Lorelei and Ben beg for it again and again and again.  And I'm happy to oblige!  Even when my in-laws were in town so I had a crowd of people listening to me croon, I was happy to oblige. 

The basic storyline (songline?) is this:  Some "she"--it's a mystery who--is comin' 'round the mountain to this little animal village in the middle of some southwestern state.  Everyone is getting ready for a party when she arrives, including "making ensalada" and getting "old brass beddy" ready.  Here is Lorelei's favorite part: "We'll have a fiesta grande while she's here. / Salsa, rice, and candy--hope she's near! / That table looks just dandy, the pinata will be handy. / Let's build a great big fire for good cheer."  In the background of many of the detailed pictures is a camper, the vehicle of the mysterious lady, making its way to the town.  On the last page, when the whole town cheers "Yea, she's here!" we realize that it's a mobile library called Six White Horses, and everyone is excited to check out new books.

A book about books!  I love it.

I also must admit another dorky fact about myself, other than the fact that I play a pretty rad air banjo.  I make up songs for everything.  We have a quesadilla song, a guacamole song, a whatever-needs-to-be-sung-about song.  I usually take the lyrics to a song Lorelei and Ben know, and it cracks them up to here the latest version of it.  Lorelei plays along, too, and she makes up songs about things as she plays by herself or with Ben or with whatever it is that interests her at the moment.  We've all had a great time learning the lyrics to this book/song and also authoring our own!