My Mum is an Airplane

This is a fantastic, beautifully illustrated story by the Russian animator Yulya Aronova. There’s a little bit of narration (in Russian with English subtitles) at the beginning, but it’s not too much to read out loud, or can be understood perfectly without the words. It starts out describing an enjoyable diversity of kinds of mums (musicians, carpenters, circus performers, etc.), before getting to the airplane mum (and her little child), and the rest of the film is the airplane mum’s adventures delivering mail. There’s one potentially scary airplane in here, and a storm, but any tension is short-lived, and everything turns out ok. We all love this!

Age: 3+
Child rating: 10/10
Adult rating: 10/10
Running time: 7 minutes
Available for free on Vimeo

Royal Ballet – Beatrix Potter Tales

This is the film version of a ballet version of the Tales of Beatrix Potter, performed by members of the Royal Ballet. The tales are told wordlessly, with lavish scenery and costumes, lush music, and colorful, characterful choreography by Frederick Ashton. We all enjoyed this, and M. laughed out loud a number of times. Our favourite so far is The Tale of Two Bad Mice (perhaps not to be watched if your kid is in the mood to copy what he or she sees on the screen).

Age: 0+
Child rating: 9/10
Adult rating: 9/10
Running time: multiple stories, mostly in the 5-10 minute range
Available for free on Youtube in the UK. (Possibly not elsewhere?)

Bathing Babies in Three Cultures

Here’s some fascinating footage by Margaret Mead, of babies being bathed in 1940s Papua New Guinea, 1930s and 1940s America, and 1940s Bali. It includes a voiceover of Margaret Mead describing the baths, which strives for anthropological neutrality, but doesn’t quite hide the fact that she thinks the 1940s American technique is the most modern and scientific. M. loves this, and has watched it many times, and L. (10 months) is enjoying it too.

My favourite line, from the 1930s America section is “The bath is a long elaborate process, which may take as much as an hour, and dominate the whole life of the household for the day.” We just fit the kids’ baths in when we can, and I’m always a bit mystified by families for whom it’s a major part of the daily routine!

Age: 0+
Child rating: 9/10
Adult rating: 9/10
Running time: 12 minutes
Available for free on Youtube