Peter Yarrow Talks About His Books for Kids

Famous Singer/Songwriter Re-Imagines Popular Folk Songs

Oct 13, 2009

Peter Yarrow, the folk singer/songwriter of Peter, Paul, & Mary, discusses what the Puff the Magic Dragon picture book and his new books for kids mean to him.

Over the years, singer/songwriter Peter Yarrow has reached many people with folk music – from the audiences he entertained as part of the iconic trio Peter, Paul & Mary; to the thousands of activists he helped organize for historic civil rights marches and Vietnam War protests; to the students and educators he now helps soothe and heal through the bullying solutions program Operation Respect.

Today, Peter Yarrow is re-imagining his folk songs – from “Puff the Magic Dragon” to “Day is Done” – as storytelling books. Together with CDs featuring new recordings by Peter, his daughter Bethany Yarrow, and cellist Rufus Cappadocia, these books are introducing a new generation to folk music.

Suite 101 had the opportunity to speak with Peter Yarrow about his books via an October 9, 2009 phone interview. The following is an edited version of the interview.

S101: The book adaptation of “Puff, the Magic Dragon” has a happier ending with Puff finding a new companion in Jackie Paper’s daughter instead of remaining alone in Honalee after Jackie grows up. Why did you make the book different from the song on your Peter, Paul and Mommy children’s album?

PY: [Puff, the Magic Dragon] was about the necessity of losing the innocence of childhood. When Jackie Paper has to go to the real world, he cannot remain an innocent part of a world in Honalee that doesn’t address what being a human being is. He has to grow up and help create a more just, fair, and caring world. And we have to understand that we inevitably have to put aside childish things at a certain point.

But dragons don’t understand that. They’re not our parents – they’re dragons. So recognizing that, as the years passed, I felt it appropriate to create a scenario of a happier possibility – there’s no question it was a sad day when Jackie left, but there’s a silver lining because Jackie’s daughter can go and play with Puff. And it’s about time! Puff’s been out there for fifty years – it’s about time we stopped worrying about him.

S101: Your new book, Day is Done, turns the “Day is Done” song into an animal picture book that shows animal parents and kids act out the lyrics – and then shows a boy and his father in a room with the animals as stuffed toys. Why did you use this approach?

PY: It is a wonderful resolution, isn’t it? And it implies that in the mind of the child, the animals he plays with refer to something in the real world – the love between animals and the relationship with his father. Because we know that sometimes when we are unable to nurture ourselves, we do so vicariously by nurturing and soothing others.

And perhaps the child takes his animals and by virtue of soothing them, is able to vicariously love and nurture himself. And in the last verse, he takes his father’s hand and leads him. And that’s what the song is about –it is the hearts of children who have not yet learned to hate that can lead us, we who have not done such a terrific job in terms of eliminating unfairness and unjustness and war.

Beyond Peter, Paul, & Mary

S101: After adapting your songs into books and Allen Shamblin and Steve Seskin’s song “Don’t Laugh at Me” into a curriculum for the Operation Respect bullying prevention program, do you plan to adapt more songs into other creative expressions?

PY: Well I co-produced three specials on Puff the Magic Dragon in the late 1970s, and we’re also working toward a film of Puff the Magic Dragon.

I think that the form of communication is changing in our time and it’s very important to look at what that allows us. All the songs in the Peter Yarrow Songbooks – Favorite Folk Songs, Sleepy Time Songs, and Let’s Sing Together – are available to educators for free on the Operation Respect website because they should be there to enrich the lives of children. So if you’re a school teacher, camp counselor, Boy Scout leader, or administrator – go access them, they’re free!

My engagement and involvement with folk music has an end. I am not immortal – we just lost Mary – and there will come a time when we have to say, “Where is that music going? Who is caring it on?” And the answer for me, is that it is carried on by my daughter and people like her, who love, understand, share and re-interpret the music in their own ways, as is always done with folk music from generation to generation.

So on a global level, you can say the music regenerates itself, but the important thing about the books is that they become a vehicle for resuscitating the awareness and prominence of folk music in a new way – in the form of an illustrated children’s book.

More Books for Kids by Peter Yarrow

Peter Yarrow, Bethany Yarrow, and many artists and musicians continue re-imagining folk music through picture books and CDs. Keep following their music with these books:

Lipton, Lenny, Peter Yarrow, and Eric Puybaret. Puff the Magic Dragon. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 2007. ISBN: 978-1-4027-4782-3

Yarrow, Peter and Melissa Sweet. Day is Done. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 2009. ISBN: 978-1-4027-4806-6

Yarrow, Peter and Terry Widener. The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Let’s Sing Together! New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 2009. ISBN: 978-1-4027-5963-5

Yarrow, Peter and Terry Widener. The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Favorite Folk Songs. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. 2008. ISBN: 978-1402759611

Yarrow, Peter and Terry Widener. The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Sleepytime Songs. New York: Sterling Publishing Co, Inc. 2008. ISBN: 978-1402759628

The copyright of the article Peter Yarrow Talks About His Books for Kids in Picture Books is owned by Michael Jung. Permission to republish Peter Yarrow Talks About His Books for Kids in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.