Mother Earth (by Tom Chapin, Children's Music)

"All we need is what we've got," or so the admirable lyrics to "Stone Soup" would have us believe. MOTHER EARTH has most of the ingredients for a really great album, but it needs something more. The high energy level that makes some of Chapin's other albums so much fun has been turned down a notch.

These tunes aren't very catchy, the selections are uneven (only one or two songs really hit the mark), and it's hard to figure out exactly where the album is aimed. For example, the message behind "Two Kinds of Seagulls" will be lost on younger children, but older kids won't like the silly lyrics. Younger kids will adore imitating the sounds of cars and trains in one song; older kids (and you) will better appreciate the cousins who cause bedlam and mayhem in another.