The 5 Best Children’s Albums of All Time

We are living in a golden age for kids music, what with They Might Be Giants, Dan Zanes, and the geniuses at Yo Gabba Gabba producing  tunes that parents dig as much as their little ones. The folks at lullaby world headquarters spend a lot of time debating our favorite children's albums, but here are the ones we all agreed are the 5 best children's albums of all time. Our list favors the classics, and is totally unscientific and biased but here goes nothing. What are your favorites? Let us know in the comments.

1. Woody Guthrie - Nursery Days Of course every kid in the U.S. grows up singing Woody's anthem "This Land is Your Land," but Guthrie wrote many more sweet, silly and wonderful songs to entertain his own children that have become children's music staples. He seemed to sing from a kid's eye view and his lyrics are simple and enchanting. Highlights include "Clean-O," all about what fun it is getting nice and clean-o, or "Car Car (Riding in My Car)," which revels in all the joyous sights and sounds of a car ride. You might also want to check out Songs to Grow On for Mother and Child, with the timeless "Why, Oh Why," a song about all the questions little ones love to ask: "Why can't a bird eat an elephant? Why, oh why, oh why? Because an elephant has a pretty hard skin. Good bye, good bye, good bye."

2. Free To Be You and Me by Marlo Thomas and Friends This soundtrack is a generational touchstone that has since become a standard, still rating high on Amazon's top sellers for children's music. It's far more fun than any treatise on gender equality, fairness, decency, and overcoming cultural stereotypes has a right to be. Created by Marlo Thomas and featuring Mel Brooks, Diana Ross, Carol Channing, and Harry Belafonte, how could it not be fun? Highlights: Football great Rosey Grier singing "It's all right to cry, crying takes the sad out you." Sure made us feel better when we were wee.

3. The Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas Soundtrack   How many of us were West Coast jazz aficionados as youngsters and didn't even know it? Mr. Guaraldi classed up many a Christmas with his timeless soundtrack.  

4. Best of Schoolhouse Rock How do we know what a conjunction is, or how a bill becomes a law? Because we watched Saturday morning cartoons, that's why. Luckily nostalgic adults put the amazingly entertaining and educational songs of Schoolhouse Rock on disc to become a kid's classic for the ages. Oh, yes! 

5. The Sesame Street Book & Record

The very first of many Sesame Street albums was released in 1970, and reissued many times over the years under different titles, different covers, without the book, etc. Well, we loved all the variations. With the original renditions of "I Love Trash" by Oscar the Grouch and "Rubber Duckie" by Ernie, this one is truly a classic. There are, of course, many more amazing children's albums that have been produced since these classics were recorded. And maybe one of the below made your list. Wink, wink.