Classical Baby: The Poetry Show

Featuring the hallmark animation of HBO Familys Peabody and Emmy Award-winning Classical Baby franchise, Classical Baby: The Poetry Show presents timeless treasures from the world of poetry, including classics by William Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Langston Hughes. With an all-star cast including Susan Sarandon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Geoffrey Wright, Andy Garcia and John Lithgow, this all-new half hour will plant the seeds for a lifelong love of the sound of words!

Young children are instinctively drawn to the sound of rhyming words and the rhythmic cadence of poetry. Add colorful animation, music, and footage of real elementary age children, and Classical Baby has created an appealing half-hour program that encourages an early appreciation of poetry. Produced in association with The Poetry Foundation, Classical Baby: The Poetry Show is a compilation of 13 favorite poems from poetry masters like William Shakespeare, John Keats, Woodie Guthrie, and Gertrude Stein. Famous personalities including Gwyneth Paltrow and Susan Sarandon recite poems like Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee?" and Robert Frost's "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening." William Carlos Williams reads his own "This is Just to Say" while Hoagy Carmichael performs Johnny Mercer's "Skylark" and young children recite poems like William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow." Poems are accompanied by bright animation that's highly appealing to children and many are followed by brief comments from elementary age children. Some preschool and elementary-age viewers will be transfixed by the entire production while others will pick and choose the segments they find interesting, but what's most important is that every young viewer gains exposure to the art of poetry. --Tami Horiuchi