A little English lesson, please

A colleague of mine performed this song with his chorus, and costumes, and hoopla. I may try it myself with some younger grades!

A child's celebration of folk music [sound recording].

Children of all ages will delight in the simple melodies featured in A Child's Collection of Folk Music. These story-songs are repetitive and eminently singable. Material ranges from traditional twangy banjo numbers like "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" from Folk granddaddy Pete Seeger to the soulful song-in-the-round "Run Molly Run" by contemporary gospel group Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Really fun music - Maille loves to sing along already. I run from the canned-pop style of "new" kids songs - I am glad we found this CD at the library, and we will look for more classics soon. I plan on singing many of these with my fall classes at the Barnard School!

Even When God is Silent.

I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love even when feeling it not.

I believe in God even when God is silent.

About Michael Horvit's composition:

On the evening of November 9- 10, 1938, a notorious Nazi spasm of violence against Jews occurred in cities throughout Germany in which storm troopers and civilians vandalized property and committed other outrages of physical intimidation. The broken windows from these destroyed homes and shops became the historic metaphor for the memory of that night as Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass.” In 1988, to observe the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht, Michael Horvit wrote “Even When God Is Silent,” as a commission from Congregation Emanu-El, in Houston (where Dr. Horvit served for twenty-five years as music director). In his preface to the anthem, Dr. Horvit describes the specific inspiration for the work: “Allied troops found [a] poem written on the walls of a basement in Cologne, Germany. It had been written there by someone hiding from the Gestapo. It is one of the most poignant poems I know: an extraordinary testimony of faith under horrible circumstances.”