Peter Himmelman has been around the kids' music scene for a while -- not as long as he's been making music for a living -- but his first album for families, My Best Friend is a Salamander, came out in 1997. He's adapted nicely to the brave new world of the music industry, scoring the Judging Amy TV series and creating not one, but two video series for the internet (more on that below). His fifth album for kids, My Trampoline, is being released today on the new Minivan Productions kids music label. I talked to him by phone last week, calling him at 8 AM -- not just my time, but also his time. Despite getting in from a songwriting workshop at 1 AM that same morning, Himmelman was thoughtful, expansive regarding his views on kids and music for kids, and, as befits a man who tells lots of ornate stories, far more verbally agile than I typically am at that hour... Zooglobble: Thanks for taking such an early call... Peter Himmelman: Oh, no problem -- please don't tell anyone that I don't live a bohemian lifestyle... So I'll start off with a question I typically ask in every interview, and that's what musical memories you had growing up? That's a good question worth asking. When I was 5 or 6, I'd listen with my older sister, who was 12; this was maybe 1966 or so. I would hear the Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" or maybe "Stop in the Name of Love". The ever-enchanting "House of the Rising Sun." I remember the electric organ -- snippets of songs can be very moving. Then when I was 7 or 8, I'd play with my friend Doug Kauffman -- he had some free LPs. We'd listen and pretend the stuffed animals were the band. The rabbit would be the singer, flopping around. I enjoyed it more than he did, which is maybe why I went into music and he went into finance. You tell a lot of stories in your songs, so do you also have any book memories from growing up? Oh, Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach. My mom would read to me from a collection called Kiss, Kiss, which was kind of dark. Shel Silverstein. Maurice Sendak, of course - Where the Wild Things Are. Jules Verne... My first book I can remember really getting into was Scott O' Dell's Island of Blue Dolphins. Oh, we had these stories on vinyl -- I remember 101 Dalmatians. I also liked audio stories -- I still do. I like the aural imagery. Do you segregate your writing for kids?