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After a week of chilly, rainy weather, a bright sunny day finally arrived here in New England. Not too hot, not too cool: it was, as Goldilocks found the baby bear’s porridge to be, just right.

My daughter, who had spent the cold, wet days reading her way through a pile of books, gulping them down like milkshakes, didn’t move an inch.

“Look,” I said, “the sun is out! Let’s get our bikes!”

“Mom,” she said, not even looking up, “I’m reading.”

Back before pop diva Lisa Loeb became a household name, she and Elizabeth Mitchell performed together at Brown University. While Mitchell didn’t achieve Loeb’s fame, she possesses no less talent—and on her album for children, You Are My Little Bird (Smithsonian Folk ways), she demonstrates how the simplest music-making can be the most moving.