AND FOR THE TOTS ...

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

A few years ago, while he was passionately setting New York City's East Village Bohemian life to song in Rent, the late composer Jonathan Larson helped support himself by creating music that had little to do with the world of the tongue-pierced. He was a children's songwriter, composing music for Sesame Street as well as a number of tunes for kids' book-cassettes, including one based on Steven Spielberg's An American Tail.

As it turns out, Larson also left behind a children's mini-musical that he co-wrote with composer Bob Golden. Titled Away We Go!, the half-hour songfest--a youngster's travelogue of Manhattan--originally aired on the Learning Channel and has just been released on video. The host of the musical, which is conceived for two- to eight-year-olds, is a shabby-looking puppet named Newt who takes a young boy and girl for taxi, bus and ferry rides throughout the city.

All eight songs in Away We Go! are full of imagination and snap (be forewarned that they will linger far too long in the heads of grownups), but this is not the sort of children's entertainment that will knock you out with its sophistication. Larson was not aiming to educate here nor to be hip--don't expect to see the wee stars exploring a divey apartment with a bathtub in the living room. He was only trying, it seems, to breezily delight his young audience. And that he has certainly accomplished. --By Ginia Bellafante