One of the best children’s albums out there. I love the fact that Fink & Marxer teamed up with Brave Combo. There are so many different styles of music presented that this is a fun album to listen to even if you are slightly older than 3.

The title says it all “The Coolest Christmas”. Especially with Bing Crosby, David Bowie, Roy Orbison and Dean Martin it HAS to be COOL.

This book tries to imagine what happened prior to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. It is a fun story with lots of action. In the end you know what happens, but it is fun to see the development that leads to Captain Hook losing his hand, how Peter learns to fly, where the Lost Boys were lost from, how the Mermaids arrived on the island and a few other tidbits along the way.

A good solid Ale from Samuel Smith with the added bonus that it is organically produced. I especially like the old style label that makes you feel like you are drinking a beer made with the same process, ingredients and care that the Samuel Smith Brewery used over 100 years ago.

one listen to this album and no one can stop you now, tonight you’re on the loose…

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are wonderful books on their own. This Annotated version adds a depth that makes them enjoyable on many levels. Enclosed in the book are hundreds of annontations with the collected wisdom of many researchers during the past hundred years. The section on the poem “Jabberwocky” is worth the cover price alone. It is nice to get a perspective on Lewis Carroll (really Charles Dodgson), his relationship to the “real” Alice (Ms. Liddell) and life in Victorian England to show some of the true humor and wit of the Alice stories.

As a bonus the Definitive Edition includes “The Wasp in a Wig” which was a section of Through the Looking Glass that Carroll removed in an early edit and remained unpublished until just recently. This section gives a view of Carroll’s writing in more of a raw form.

This collection of music defines the Disco era. A must for anyone who remembers polyester suits, big hair and pop charts dominated by the Bee Gees.

The soundtrack to the movie Absolute Beginners is a great collection of songs having a wide range of musical styles. With dabs of pop, rock, swing, jazz and latin, there is something for everyone. David Bowie is the headline name on the album (and movie), but Sade, Style Council and a young Patsy Kensit bring in the strong performances. I suggest you see the movie once and then listen to the soundtrack over and over.

A fun movie that blends music, dancing and the life of penguins together. Robin Williams is the most notable voice lending his talent to Lovelace and Ramon with each having a number of great one-liners. The story is well thought out and is creative in how it builds upon real penguin traits (like having unique songs or collecting pebbles) and makes them the structure for a penguin society. Visually the movie is beautiful. The music is also a lot of fun with hints of Stevie Wonder, the Beatles, Queen, Elvis and Prince.

It has a couple of scary parts that are so well done that they are in fact SCARY, so the 7 and under crowd might want to cover their eyes.

I caught this concert film on the Sundance channel and found it to be very entertaining. Prince and the other musicians put on a high power performance. Film was from 1987 during his Sign O the Times Tour in Europe.