A Singing Game: A Personal History of "When I Was a Baby" examines a series of variants of the classic singing game. "When I Was a Baby," like other traditional singing games, is based around a verse or rhyme paired with a set of movements. This singing game was made up by children and passed down by classmates, siblings, and friends to other children over a period of at least 150 years.
Jeanne Pitre Soileau traces "When I Was a Baby" through its many permutations, from its earliest appearance in folklore to variations uploaded to YouTube, and introduces the varied folklorists who collected it through its history. As the years go by, the anonymous child poets who keep it alive, keen observers of change, spice it up with new vocabulary and pantomimes, and incorporate into it more piquant social commentary. Part folklore study, part memoir, A Singing Game also explores Soileau's journey of becoming, through trial and error, a specialist in south Louisiana child lore. Altogether, A Singing Game is an important addition to the children's folklore canon.

- 135 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
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Information
Subtopic
North American HistoryIndex
Social SciencesTable of contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Preface
- Chapter One: Memoir and Louisiana Connection
- Chapter Two: The History
- Chapter Three: “When I Was a Baby” in the Twentieth Century
- Chapter Four: “When I Was a Baby” on Film, Video, and the Internet
- Conclusion
- Further Musings
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
- Index of First Lines
- About the Author
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Yes, you can access A Singing Game by Jeanne Pitre Soileau in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & North American History. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.