Jungle Night

Two celebrated artists, Sandra Boynton and Yo-Yo Ma, come together for Jungle Night, a soothing bedtime board book. (Okay, MOSTLY soothing.)

This board book guides us through the jungle to hear the distinctive, gentle snore of each animal: “Listen to the tiger: ZEEE-ZOOO-HAAA. Listen to the cheetah: CHEE-CHEE-TAAAH.” A free downloadable recording at JungleNight.com offers a narration of the book, with each and every animal snore interpreted by the expressive, playful cello of Yo-Yo Ma. He even does the elephant’s stop-the-show snore—though admittedly that took Ma’s cello PLUS the classic horn salute of the James R. Barker steamship. (Seriously.)

All this fabulousness leads into the coolest lullaby ever: “Jungle Gymnopédie No. 1,” a polyrhythmic jungle-y arrangement by Boynton of Erik Satie’s renowned piece, with Yo-Yo Ma on cello, guitar played by Ron Block of Alison Krauss Union Station, and drums by Kevin MacLeod. “Yo-Yo and I chose this piece because it’s the most gorgeous and mesmerizing night song imaginable,” explains Boynton. “And there was surely nothing else that could get those animals back to sleep after that elephant blast.”

Sandra Boynton is a popular American cartoonist, children’s author, songwriter, producer, and director. Since 1974, Boynton has written and illustrated over seventy-five children’s books and seven general audience books, including five New York Times bestsellers. More than 85 million of her books have been sold, “mostly to friends and family,” she says. She has also written (with Michael Ford) and produced six albums of renegade children’s music. Three of her six albums have been certified Gold (over 500,000 copies sold) and Philadelphia Chickens, nominated for a Grammy, has been certified Platinum (over 1 million copies sold). Boynton has also directed twelve music videos of her songs, including the award-winning “One Shoe Blues” starring B.B. King, “Alligator Stroll” starring Josh Turner, and “Tyrannosaurus Funk” (animated) sung by Samuel L. Jackson. She lives in rural New England, and her studio is in a barn with perhaps the only hippopotamus weathervane in America.