Previously by Hannah Notess: Unconvincing Hymns of the Temperance Army
If the number of times I’ve read the book Sharing Time or found myself singing a Daniel Tiger song like “You’ve gotta try new food, ’cause it might taste goo-ood” is any indication, didactic stories and songs for children are never, ever going away. As parents and teachers, we just seem to want something cheesy, easy to remember, and ever so slightly passive-aggressive to pull out in those moments when we’re trying to convey, for the zillionth time, that biting your preschool friends is not living your best life. But given that pundits like to go on about character, and how we used to have it and now we don’t, I thought it might be interesting to go back and look at some of the Sunday-school songs Americans were using to help children grow in “character” when we were — supposedly — better at it. What, exactly, can we learn from these songs money?
Animals photo that don’t even have hands work money harder than you do.
