From the makers of Monstrous Movie Music come two brand-new releases! While these aren't soundtracks, we thought that our new CDs would appeal to some fans of our film music label. If you have any children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or cousins, or perhaps you want to buy something that is fun and thought-provoking for your friends' kids and grandkids, then you might be interested in Your Imagination Presents.

You'll recognize some familiar MMM names associated with Your Imagination Presents. The music was composed and recorded by Kathleen Mayne, who oversees the music on our film music CDs. The stories and Creativity Booklet were written by David Schecter, who writes those mindnumbingly-detailed liner books for MMM. The cover art and Creativity Booklet illustrations are by Robert Aragon, whose cover art adorns all the MMM releases.

Our goals in the Your Imagination Presents series are to provide a positive alternative to television, video games and other toys that don't do much to help foster a child's creativity and independent thinking, and to expose children to dramatic underscoring so they can appreciate the power of music in a different way from just listening to songs.

The stories were inspired by some of the influences I grew up with: Tom Swift Jr. books, Jonny Quest, Ray Harryhausen movies, Jules Verne tales, and you'll also find little bits of the sci-fi films that left an indelible mark on me like THE MOLE PEOPLE, CONQUEST OF SPACE, SON OF GODZILLA, and many others. Writing them allowed me to relive some of the best moments of my youth and to try to share those joys with children growing up today.

Your Imagination Presents takes children's audio in an incredible new direction. This amazing CD series for children seven and older turns storytelling on its ear by presenting thrilling adventures set to music. A child's imagination is all that's needed to bring Your Imagination Presents to life!

What Makes Your Imagination Presents Different?

Your Imagination Presents offers unforgettable tales where you're the star of the show! As you go on breathtaking journeys to distant times and places, you participate in the drama, experiencing things more powerfully than when you listen to stories about other people. And each time you listen, you get to climb, fly, solve problems, answer questions, and act out the adventure in a different way.

Your Imagination Presents uses a child's imagination to provide the visual. Most children's audio stories describe in precise detail what the listener is supposed to be "seeing," so children have few opportunities for creative input. Your Imagination Presents stories are visually stimulating -- not visually specific -- inspiring your imagination to provide the images. While you're listening to, talking with, and helping out the other characters in the story, you can decide what things look, sound, feel, and taste like. Besides stimulating a child's imagination, Your Imagination Presents provides movement exercises, encourages group-oriented and goal-oriented thinking, and its storytelling techniques can foster critical thinking. Best of all, children don't have to worry about failure, because their imaginations and visualizations are every bit as "right" as anyone else's.

While most children's music is in the form of songs to be sung in very specific ways, Your Imagination Presents uses powerful original dramatic music composed and orchestrated to inspire a wide range of images, actions, and feelings. Adults (and especially film music fans) will enjoy its rich textures as much as children.

Each CD contains an illustrated Creativity Booklet with fun and imaginative exercises that can help children expand their creativity in the areas of thinking, drawing, and storytelling.

Our first two CDs, "Space Flight to the Unknown" and "Mystery Island," will be ready to ship the first week of July, 2008. The price of each CD is $14.95 plus shipping. We are now taking advance orders via phone, fax, e-mail, PayPal, etc.

If you visit http://www.yourimaginationpresents.com you can hear audio samples, find out more about how Your Imagination Presents works, and you can order directly from our website. Here's an mp3 audio sample from "Mystery Island"… http://www.yourimaginationpresents.com/soundsamples/SOUND--YIP--MysteryIsland-LostAtSea.mp3

From the farthest reaches of outer space to the depths of the ocean, back to the age of dinosaurs and ahead to the distant future, with Your Imagination Presents, no time or place is beyond a child's imagination!

Be Well and Happy, people.

---- Mark

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Originally posted by Mark Hatfield:
Well, I've purchased everything these folks have ever done before, and The Lovely Laura is a teacher, so I'll try it out.....even if I'm not completely clear on the concept.

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The funny thing about the "concept" is that some adults seem to have trouble understanding it, whereas kids "get it" right away. Not sure why that is. And it's certainly not meant as a criticism -- it's just the way it is.

Through the years we consulted with teachers and child psychologists and other experts about certain aspects of the story-telling and music technique, and they were all convinced that kids needed all sorts of "explanations" so they would understand that the story involves them, that they had to use their own creativity to visualize things, that they were supposed to participate in the drama, that the dramatic music was an enhancement to help spur their creativity, and on and on.

But they were wrong. And I'm glad we didn't alter our initial concept to try to satisfy the adults. Because as we learned by testing it in public and private schools, you just play the CD with no explanation whatsoever and kids know right away what it's about.

Perhaps as adults we forget what it was like when we were younger and how open we were to new things before society and experience told us that there was only one way to do this, two ways to do that, and no way to do that other thing.