Singing supports and encourages even the youngest child's speech and listening skills, which makes Baby Beluga perfect for early learning. Join this adorable baby whale in a busy day at sea, culminating in a warm mother-child bedtime ending. With its delightful illustrations, this is the ideal sing-along for a whole new generation of readers.

goodread customer: Mar 05, 2018 Douglas Beagley rated it 5 of 5 stars: it was amazing
The Internet has a small-but-healthy movement called, "The Wholesome Meme". It's the idea that things we share, like, spread, upvote, twit, and post don't all have to be sarcastic, cutting, political, negative, or an ironic callback. It's okay for things to be "wholesome" again: kind, simple, sincere, and filled with whimsy, expressing a love for all existence, whispering "it's okay" before having a bite of amazing pie that was given to you out of kindness, and not sold to you for profit.

Raffi, and in particular Baby Beluga, are my wholesome meme. I never listened to Raffi as a child--it just missed us, I guess. I watched Sesame Street and my parents played Steeleye Span and Simon and Garfunkel-- plenty of wholesome, but not Raffi. Raffi came into my life with my own kids.

Baby Beluga is as wholesome as it gets--it's about a whale, but on page 4 you do not hear about the polluting humans or the oil barons or whaling. That's for a different book. It's about simple love between mother and child, but on page 5 you do not see the child resist or ask for reassurance that he will be loved even if he turns out to be a raccoon/republican/gay, or see the painful side of love or cruelty or intolerance. That's for a different book. It's about how wonderful the world and nature are, and on page 6 you do not need to be reminded that nature is competitive, or that nature is sick, or that we are distanced from nature by our ongoing effort to digitize our hearts. Baby Beluga is about bedtime, maybe, bedtime as a nice, warm and gentle time, not a time to have a system or to fight against a system.

Those other things are all important to say, and important that we talk about them in children's books too... but this book/song is not that. This poem uplifts, and defines joy as something to be enjoyed for its own sake. It is an unconditional hug. The sun is always there, the stars are your friends, forever and always. The waves roll in and the waves roll out.

goodread customer: Mar 21, 2015 ❀Aimee❀ rated it 5 of 5 stars: Just one more page ... it was amazing
I LOVED Raffi as a kid (and as an adult as I introduced them to my kiddos). This book has wonderful illustrations to go along with one of Raffi's most loved songs.