Recess! Media

October has been dubbed the Month of the Dinosaur, and if your family still hasn’t had enough Velociraptor and Pterodactyl action from this past summer’s movie fare at the Jurassiplex, or insightful commentary from the BBC’s and Discovery Channel’s series, “Walking With Dinosaurs,” or enough information from the many articles and books that keep appearing about these fascinating creatures, perhaps you might want to add a little music to heighten the ambiance and evoke those misty Mesozoic mornings:

Brief sound clip 

That’s the Bergman Broom Haywire Ensemble from their recent CD, “9 Dinosaur Songs.” It’s a clever, satiric take on dinosaur life that’s just right for elementary school kids who already have their bearings with dinosaur science and now are ready to play around with some the ideas and facts that have been stomping through their imaginations. And the Ensemble won’t disappoint. They’ve included a waltz for the bell of the ball, the Ankylosaur; a ballad about about a glasses-wearing, word-loving creature they’ve named the Thesaurus; and song for a poor Stegosaurus who’s a little bit slow and forgetful at the grocery store. But the real show-stopper is their number about the scourge of prehistory, the Tyrannosaurus.

The songs are a little edgy — like John Scieska’s “Stinky Cheeseman” stories that are the delight of third, fourth and fifth graders. But that edginess is also what makes them so appealing. They’re like the folklore that kids invent for themselves to test limits, to sharpen their wits, and to create something that is really, truly their own, from the prehistory of every childhood.