‘Happy and You Know It’ Director Penny Lane on Why We Should Give Kids’ Music a Chance

If you have any small children in your life, you’d probably do anything to hear less of the earworm-y songs about dinosaurs, dancing, and baby sharks that they love. But documentarian Penny Lane, who examined the world of children’s music in her new film, Happy and You Know It, thinks that those of us who tune it out are missing out on some legitimate artistry. “Kids’ music,” says Lane, “is seen as something that you use. You use it to get your kid to shut up, or you use it to put your kid to sleep, or you use it to distract them. And we were really just really interested in opening that aperture and being like, ‘there’s more going on here than just what you use to pacify a kid.'”