Growing Up With Ella Jenkins

1	A Neighborhood Is a Friendly Place / Mary Crane Center 2:45
2	Greeting and Farewell Song / Mary Crane Center 1:06
3	Names / Mary Crane Center 2:15
4	I Got a Job / Mary Crane Center 2:12
5	I'm Changing / Mary Crane Center 3:19
6	Big, Bigger, Biggest / Mary Crane Center 1:33
7	Big, Bigger, Biggest / Mary Crane Center 2:24
8	Ten Green Bottles / Mary Crane Center 1:41
9	Farmer Brown Had Ten Green Apples / Mary Crane Center 2:52
10	Show Me / Mary Crane Center 5:00
11	I Wonder Who's Outside My Door / Mary Crane Center 2:11
12	Barnacle Bill the Sailor / Mary Crane Center 1:13
13	A Sailor Went to Sea / Mary Crane Center 1:39
14	A Sea Shell Poem from My Grandpa / Mary Crane Center 1:25
15	Swinging in the Grapevine Swing / Mary Crane Center 2:06
16	Little Orphan Annie / Mary Crane Center 1:36
17	Inside and Outside / Mary Crane Center 1:27
18	Hickory Dickory Dock / Mary Crane Center 1:32
19	I Think Mice Are Rather Nice / Mary Crane Center 0:30
20	Shake Hands With Friends / Mary Crane Center 1:55

Barnes & Noble

Originally recorded in 1976, Growing Up with Ella Jenkins remains a children's folk music classic. The disc features the kids of Mary Crane Day Care Center, located in Ella's hometown of Chicago, with which she has been involved for 25 years. This playful album features acoustic guitar and a bit of kazoo along with chants, rhymes, and dances, all inspired by Jenkins' desire to educate and entertain her young audience. Filled with simple themes and engaging lyrics, Jenkins's songs are an interactive experience, inviting listeners to join in (happily, the booklet provides song lyrics). "I Got a Job" explores the many career opportunities awaiting her audience, while the rollicking "I Wonder Who's Outside My Door" offers a fun-filled counting lesson. With assistance from her kiddie chorus, Jenkins reenergizes the classic "Hickory Dickory Dock." Young listeners will revel in Jenkins's simple tunes and soothing voice, and parents will appreciate her easygoing but educational style. The charming Growing Up with Ella Jenkins is a welcome addition to any child's music collection. Amy Barkat

All Music Guide

Ella Jenkins is a dependable performer for delivering intelligent, high-quality folk-based children's music. That's what she does with acoustic guitar, ukulele, and banjo in this set, sometimes relying on just chanting and handclapping. It was recorded at the Mary Crane Center in Chicago and originally issued in 1976, with Guy Guilbert adding some instrumentation and vocals. From a musical standpoint, it might rate as one of her less enjoyable recordings, not due to her own work but some attributes of the performance that might occasionally irritate listeners (albeit primarily adults, rather than the kids toward whom this is aimed). There's a good amount of enthusiastic but discordant singing by the children in the audience, who in fact carry the whole vocal performance on "Farmer Brown Had Ten Green Apples." The insistent kazoos of "Show Me" are also a lot more fun to play than to hear, and one might also say that of the squeaky mouse effects on a few numbers. It's nice, admittedly, to hear mice described in a positive light rather than as pests in the 32-second "I Think Mice Are Rather Nice." Still, these tunes are easy to assimilate and sing, and well done by the performer, though some are on the extremely elementary level (with repeated phrases aplenty), closer to the lower range of the three- to nine-year-olds who serve as the album's target audience. Richie Unterberger