I think we’re all in agreement — and if we aren’t, then I don’t even know what to say to you right now — that Michael Rachap of Readeez is one of the great unheralded heroes of the kindie scene. His songwriting is witty and sharp, he only gives interviews to the finest publications, and his songs are as adorable as well as educational.

Yea, verily, Rachap giveth. But what’s that? You want more? You’re terribly greedy — and very lucky. We’ll let Michael fill you in:

Want to win an awesome gift for a child you care about?

I’m giving away an autographed Grand Slam Bundle, plus a Money Math Folderful (value: $56.95) just to encourage sharing.

I call it the Tweet-A-Readee Contest. It’s way easy to enter. Details are here, but it’s basically this: Go to Readeez.com and click “Watch.” Find a Readee you like and share it on Twitter or Facebook (or both!). You can enter once per day, and the contest ends October 31st.

If you share on Facebook, let me know in the Comments under the video. (I’ll know if you share on Twitter.)

That’s it! Simple, right? And just think how happy you’d be with three great Readeez DVDs, the Songeez CD and the Money Math Folderful in the house.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go enter already. Sheesh.

Who needs a ball and a hoop for March Madness? It’s time to break out your brackets kindie style, with the 2011 KidVid Tournament!

What’s a KidVid Tournament, you ask? Only a roundup of some of the year’s best and brightest kindie videos, organized into divisions and marched into one-on-one battle, one round at a time. Cheerleaders are not involved, regrettably, but I imagine some sort of trophy awaits the winner. Or pride. Whatever.

Anyway, the fun kicks off today at Out with the Kids, where the Woody Guthrie Regional division is hitting the court. Here’s a breakdown of the videos fighting for your vote today, along with a little commentary from yours truly. Watch the clips and then head over to OWTK to cast your vote!

#1 Seed: The Bazillions, “Preposition”

I didn’t review this album; in fact, I’m hearing the song for the first time today. It isn’t hard to understand why the band is proud of this track — it’s lyrically very clever — and the video is certainly lovely. But this song doesn’t do much once it gets started, does it? They’re aiming for an audience old enough to understand prepositions here, so it isn’t like they needed to go crazy with cute tricks in the arrangement, but this is a long 3:30. Still, it has some pretty stellar production values for a kindie video. The odds-on favorite? We’ll see.

#4 Seed: Coal Train Railroad and Readeez, “Just the Juice Jack”
Coal Train Railroad and Readeez — two great things that go great together, to pinch a phrase from the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercials. The song might make more diet-conscious parents wince — we limit our kids to a couple of cups a day — but this is still a good example of a talented band performing a catchy song and giving it an eye-catching, albeit lo-fi, video. On the other hand, I really don’t need to hear more begging for juice.

#2 Seed: Debbie and Friends, “Cinderella”
Full disclosure: I am not a Debbie and Friends fan. On the rare occasions when I’m forced to listen to a Debbie and Friends track, I get myself through it by imagining that Debbie and Laurie Berkner unwind after long days of entertaining grubby kids by hitting the town, Thelma and Louise-style, pounding booze and getting into brawls. And it took a lot of imagination to get through “Cinderella,” a five-minute kindie prog epic that gives a fairytale classic the Godfather reference it never asked for. The song is snappy, the production is slick, the animation is eye-catching, and it’s obvious that when it comes to making videos, Debbie don’t play. It’s fine for what it is. But what it is isn’t for me.

#3 Seed: Billy Kelly, “The Sky Floats (And So Do Boats)”
Billy Kelly is sort of the Elvis Costello of kindie — without the glasses, of course, but with hints of the same unquenchable eclectic thirst (and the same willingness to stretch the fringes of his vocal range). He also understands the value of brevity — the longest song on his upcoming album, a cover of “Rock Lobster,” is 4:26, and a handful of tracks don’t even break the two-minute mark. Which brings us to “The Sky Floats (And So Do Boats),” a minute and 50 seconds of snappy pop and clever rhymes. (Floats! Boats! Goats! Mozart!) The video is obviously low-budget, but that’s par for the genre, and it’s disguised with some nifty time-lapse shenanigans.

If you’ve been reading Dadnabbit for any length of time, you know how much we love Readeez — and with the debut of Omneez, a new line of Readeez for your computer or mobile device, we decided now would be the perfect time to sit down for a chat with Michael Rachap, the voice of “Julian Waters” and the mind behind all that bite-sized educational goodness. Here’s a look back at where the series came from, where it’s headed, and more…

I think we should probably start by talking about Readeez.

One of my favorite topics!

What gave you the idea to take this approach to creating children’s media?

I wish I knew. There was an evolution. I’ll tell you the way it didn’t start — with me saying, “I’d like to teach children to read.” It actually had to do with one of my poems — I’ve been a musician all my life, but I hadn’t really recorded anything that was worth putting out there, so it started with words. “In the beginning, there was The Word.” (laughs)

I found a tape of myself playing music on a cable access show that my friend did, and I read a couple of poems and mentioned that I really love the way words look on the page — typography, you know, playing with the prosody, the form. I guess it really started from there — from visualizing poems. It didn’t take long to get from that to visualizing music.

Around ’99 or so, I walked away from my career in copywriting and went to the Berklee College of Music, and now this is what I do: I write and record songs. One of the things about Readeez is that they’re stealth delivery mechanisms for my songs — I’m a studio guy more than a live performer, and this is another way for me to get my music out there.

Your copywriting background really comes through, because these are, obviously, very short songs. I once read an interview with Paul Brady where he said the hardest thing about pop songwriting was saying everything in three minutes, and with these songs, you’re distilling them even further. It’s funny to hear you say you hadn’t really recorded anything, though because Readeez contains some of the best-written kid’s songs I’ve heard — they’re just these smart, tightly constructed little pop gems, really firmly grounded in classic songwriting components. Not only are they lyrically clever, but they’re melodically solid in a way that I think any parent who loves music can appreciate.

Melodies come to me really easily. I come at it both ways — either with a title and work from there, or I just sit down at the piano until a melody starts to form, and take the lyrics as they come.

How did you arrive at the idea for the characters of Julian and Isabel Waters?

I wanted an alter ago for myself, and Julian is tall and skinny and wears glasses like me. “Waters” is a tribute to Bill Watterson, because I’m such a Calvin & Hobbes fan. And “Julian”…I have two sources for that. One is that Groucho Marx’s real name is Julius, and the other is the Pulp Fiction character Jules. Nice kid-friendly reference there. (laughs) Really, the Waters family — they have this whole mythology I’ve constructed that we haven’t even gotten into yet. The town they live in, other members of the family…we’ll get there.

What about the animation style? How much of that came from budget or time constraints, and how much was by choice?

It’s 50/50. I don’t know how to do animation and I can’t draw, so I’m kind of embracing my limitations in that sense, but it turns out that I prefer the way Readeez looks — and it also turns out that it’s better for the purposes of reading instruction. So the way they look, both in terms of the graphic design and in terms of the motion involved, is a deliberate choice that kind of dovetails nicely with the fact that I can’t do much better than this.

It’s funny, because the first time I watched a Readeez video, I thought, “Wow, this is really low-budget” — but if my kids ever noticed, they never said anything about it. They still love the characters and they love the songs. That’s kind of an interesting commentary on the in-your-face style of animation that’s so popular now.

I once wrote a little marketing blurb that said if you take two televisions and put Readeez on the left and Nickelodeon on the right, kids’ eyes will gravitate toward the faster-paced stuff. But if you make a choice between Readeez and nothing, the kids will adore Readeez. (laughs)

I think there’s something to be said for the opposite of all those garish colors, high-speed motion, and loud noises. I hate it. I can’t stand it.

What’s striking to me is that I think from Ren & Stimpy on, animation has increased its focus on the inhuman. You really don’t see the parent-child relationship in animation, and that’s my focus. Turn on PBS Kids, and you see all kinds of three-dimensional CGI characters, but you don’t see a human parent or child.

And even more important than the animation is the music. My daughter loves the songs, and when you released Songeez, we were really excited.

The songs are really kind of this campfire glue that you and your kids can bond around. Classic songs like “Camptown Races,” or stories that your parents read to you and you grow up to pass on to your own children — that’s really the kind of thing I’m aiming for with the Readeez songs.

Last year, you moved into math, with Matheez.

I’ve been working toward curriculum-specific things, because I want to reach more people. Musically, Matheez is kind of Sesame Street-inspired — you know, those old counting songs they did, with simple visuals. You have two blocks on the screen, and now there’s two more, so you have four. The next thing I’m working on is clocks and calendars. My vision is that 15 years down the road, there will be maybe 500 Readeez, and you’ll be able to go to the website and search for them by topic. You know, “I want something about holidays,” and there it is.

One last question: Any plans to record an album of full-length songs? Maybe even one for grown-ups?

Yes, I think so. I got married in October, and my wife is a superb musician — she plays piano, guitar, drums, and teaches — and she and I are going to be working as a duo. We don’t have enough creative outlets in our lives. (laughs) We’re going to be busking and playing around Atlanta, where she owns a music school, and I teach sometimes, and I’ve got Readeez, so we have enough to talk about when we play out. I do occasionally have things that just aren’t Readeez material, but they’re songs that want to come out, so I record them anyway. Like “Sky Girl” — that’s three minutes long. It’s like the “Stairway to Heaven” of Readeez. So over-the-top long.

Progeez!

That’s probably at the top of the pile for my solo disc, or however this takes shape.

I read a beautiful poem you posted on Facebook right around the time you got married — if you set that to music…

I think publishing a book of poems is in the cards. I’ve got like 50 poems, and they’re not necessarily for kids — about love, and stuff that kids aren’t necessarily going to get. I’m calling it I Hate Poetry Too: Verses for the Verse-Averse. (laughs) So look for that probably this month.

You know, before we go, I want to say something else about Readeez. We’ve talked a little about the emotional story behind the concept, and how it’s a way to develop a lasting bond between parents and kids. But there’s the rational side of it too, which is that they show you words along with pictures — they’re kind of like flash cards that tell a story. It’s a really natural way to learn to read, and I didn’t want to let that slip by, because I know parents have so many options to choose from. They’re catchy songs, but they’re more than that — they’re also instructing in the pronunciation and spelling of words, syllable after syllable.

They’re wonderful. I love them. Thanks, Michael.

Me: I am a frying pan.

My daughter Sophie: (giggling) No, daddy, you’re a man.

Me: April fool, April fool, April fool.

Why, you ask? Only because the animated duo of Julian and Isabel Waters is back with another collection of the delightful (and educational!) animated musical shorts known as Readeez. Readeez Volume Two: Make It Up the Mountain includes 30 additions to the series that started with last year’s Readeez Volume One, and if you enjoyed the first batch, you’ll be pleased to know Volume Two is even better. The videos have a little more going on, there’s a slight theme tying them all together, and most importantly, the songs are even catchier and more varied.

Readeez creator Michael Rachap is a talented songwriter, one whose sharp command of different genres makes him uniquely well-suited to kids’ music — and whose way with a wonderfully understated, beautifully goofy turn of phrase (see above) really helps set these songs and videos apart. For a number of reasons, even the best children’s music often sounds like it’s trying too hard; sometimes the arrangements are crammed with too-obvious whimsical touches, sometimes the vocals are delivered with too much self-conscious clowning, and sometimes the lyrics can only provide an adult’s approximation of a child’s feelings. A song or album that fits any (or all) of these descriptions can still be entertaining, but something about it still rings hollow.

Rachap’s work, on the other hand, is childlike without being childish. His songs are simple in the best sense of the word. Probably due in part to the inherent limitations of a series that’s supposed to help kids learn to read as lyrics flash on the screen, Rachap keeps his meters punchy and his words short — but it works brilliantly, setting up rhymes like “I’ve got a hunch/You’re going to love your lunch” or “Red and juicy in the middle/Every mom and dad and kid’ll/Want a lot and not a little/Watermelon.” But the songs aren’t just clever — they can be really touching, too. Witness “Love’s Enough”:

The videos are cute and refreshingly simple, but my favorite part of Readeez is the music — partly because of Rachap’s songwriting, and partly because “Julian and Isabel” have just about the most adorable interplay you’ve ever heard. So while I’m excited about Readeez Volume Two, I’m even happier about Songeez, a CD collection of 28 songs from the two DVDs, including “Love’s Enough,” “April Fool,” “Watermelon,” “Love Your Lunch,” “How About That Cow,” and “Boomba Boom”:

The entire Readeez catalog is for sale at Readeez.com. At $15 a pop, they aren’t necessarily the cheapest forms of entertainment you’re going to find — but trust me, you and your kids are both going to get a lot more enjoyment out of Readeez than you will from anything on sale in the kids’ video endcap at Target. Rachap is doing marvelous work here, and his reward — more Readeez in more homes — will be your reward too.

The setup is simple: Each Readee consists of roughly a one-minute short, most of them featuring the animated duo of Julian Waters (voiced by Readeez creator Michael Rachap) and his daughter Isabel, whose sparsely drawn, gently paced interactions form the backbone of the series. As Julian and Isabel interact, their dialogue is displayed on the screen in large, clear type, helping — in theory, anyway — kids form connections between what they hear and what they read.

That’s the educational hook behind Readeez (and the genesis of its title), but since the series is aimed at kids 18 months and up — and any 18-month-old who can read quickly moving text on a screen is working in a government lab somewhere, not fooling around with DVDs for kids — it functions on other levels, too. My daughter is three, and is just beginning to put together words on the fridge with her letter magnets; she can’t read anything Julian and Isabel are saying, but she’s still requested Readeez on multiple occasions, because she loves the songs they sing, has a toddler’s inordinate fondness for anything animated, and the segments are the perfect length for a young attention span.

Children’s programming has come a long way since the days when Sesame Street was struggling to compete with the sugar-frosted Saturday morning cartoons we all remember so fondly, but even among the new wave of gentler, smarter kids’ entertainment, Readeez is something special. Here at our house, we’re lucky enough to have both the commercial-free Noggin channel and a spare TiVo that we can load up with our daughter’s favorite shows, which include Wonder Pets!, Backyardigans, and Zoboomafoo — but even those shows sometimes dabble in real-world concepts that might give you a bit of a headache. Readeez, on the other hand, is the perfect blend of educational content and entertaining, heartwarming escapism — the kind of thing you can legitimately feel good about your children watching. Here’s a song that I’ve heard Sophie singing repeatedly over the last couple of weeks:

See? Isn’t that nice? Learn more, watch more, and buy your own copy at the Readeez website.