All Ears

Spring Break is is only three weeks away and that means many families will be traveling. Now, if you are lucky you are taking a plane ride to somewhere with palm trees, sandy beaches, and drinks with tiny umbrellas.

I can dream!

If you are like me, though, vacations entail endless car rides with three whiny, tiresome children in the backseat.


Of course, tablets, phones, hand held game systems, portable DVD players etc.will keep kids occupied on long car rides; but sometimes they need a break from the tiny screen. At least I think they do, but if you ask my children I am the meanest mom on the planet because I am the only one who restricts screen time.

So what do you do to make those endless miles go by a little bit faster? Well, you could torment your children with a family sing along just like the Griswolds. Personally, my choice for family road trip entertainment is to listen to audiobooks together. Not only do audiobooks require imagination, they help children expand their attention spans (and an attention span is something that most kids are lacking). My family has been listening to audiobooks in the car for several years and we love it! My kids stop bickering and whining because they do not want to miss anything and then we have something to talk about when we make pit stops.

There are amazing audiobooks in multiple genres for every age group. However, before you load up the car you should preview a small portion of whatever audiobook you plan on playing. I recommend this because the success of an audiobook is totally dependent on the reader. An insipid reader can induce a coma even when they are reading a spectacular book.

If you do not have time to try out multiple audiobooks here are a few that my family has enjoyed.

1. The first one I want to mention is a cross between a musical and an audiobook, and it is great for younger kids.  This is not just someone reading E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan. It is a "Novel Symphony for Actors and Orchestra" and I can not come up with enough adjectives to describe how wonderful it is. The cast includes John Lithgow (love, love, love), Kathy Bates, Jesse Tyler Fergusen, Mandy Moore, Martin Short and they are accompanied by the National Symphony Orchestra. After listening to this CD you will wonder how you ever read the book without listening to Louis's trumpet. My kids have listened to this one multiple times. In fact, my son who is ten  has it on his iPod and I regularly hear it playing in his room.


2. Anything read by Jim Dale i.e. The entire Harry Potter series

Take a summer of car reads and listen to the seven Harry Potter books read by British actor, Jim Dale. I promise that you will be entranced by the way he brings Rowling's magical world to life. Dale also reads the Books of Beginnings Series by John Stephens, Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper, A Christmas Carol, Peter and the Star Catchers and the rest of the Peter Pan Series by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, The original Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Around the World in 80 days by Jules Verne, Return to the 100 Acre Wood by A.A. Milne and many more including adult books. Dale narrates something for every age and I would listen to any of his audio books.                                                                

3. One of my favorite actors is Tim Curry, who can play any character imaginable (I am still terrified of Pennywise the Clown).  I also love his voice work; he was Nigel Thornberry in The Wild Thornberrys. Curry is the perfect reader for Lemony Snicket's sardonically dreadful Series of Unfortunate Events. Since so many horrible things happen to the Baudelaire children this series is best reserved for older listeners. If you do not have time to listen to all 12 books watch this hilarious video in which Tim Curry summarizes the series in a scant 2 minutes.         

4. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is sure to elicit "yucks" and  "eeewwws" from boys but if you have girls the audio version read by Finola Hughes (All My Children's Anna Devane for all of you soap fans) is beautiful. Audiobooks are a phenomenal way to introduce classic books that your child would normally leave on the bookshelf. After all, if you play it in the car they are trapped and have to listen.

5. Also in the oldie, but goodie category are The Chronicles of Narnia by
C.S. Lewis. I love these books and I have read them more times than I can count. There have been many readers of these books, but I particularly adore the versions read by Kenneth Branagh. Most kids would recognize Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart in The Chamber of Secrets, but he first was known for writing and starring in film adaptations of Shakespeare (Hamlet, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, etc.) If you have a high schooler at home they have probably watched one of his movies in English class. More recently, Branagh has been directing and producing movies, including Thor and Jack Ryan. Branagh puts so much energy and joy into his reading that you feel like you are a part of the story.

6.  You may be surprised to learn that the How to Train Your Dragon movie veers significantly away from the book series written by Cressida Cowell. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because the movie is awesome and I cannot wait to watch the sequel in June. Even though the written adventures of  Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III are vastly different than the movie they are just as entertaining.

 If you can, I highly recommend that you try to read these in book form, because the whimsical illustrations really enhance the stories. As you can see from the pictures above Cowell's original characters do not match up very well with their movie counterparts.

Whether or not you read the books, the audio versions are a treat for younger and older kids. The Scottish actor, David Tennant, reads all of the current books in the series. All of you Doctor Who fans probably recognize Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Here is a sample of Tennant's Scottish Brogue reading the first book in the How to Train Your Dragon series.

7. I have probably mentioned (more than once) that Roald Dahl is my absolute favorite children's author and I would happily read or listen to his books a thousands of times. In the original audio versions of Dahl's books the author reads them himself. I enjoy listening to these versions, but I admit that my judgement could be clouded by my idolization of the author. Dahl's readings may  may be a little low key for younger listeners.

Recently, Penguin Audio has recorded new audio versions of multiple Dahl books and they are performed by some exceptional British authors. Kate Winslett reads Matilda; Andrew Scott (Moriarty on Sherlock) reads The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar; Stephen Fry reads The Enormous Crocodile; Miranda Richardson reads The Witches; Hugh Laurie reads The Giraffe the Pelly and Me; Dan Stevens (Downtown Abby hottie) reads both Boy and Flying Solo. 

Above is an interesting video about the process of recording these new versions complete with sound effects.

I hope that readers of this blog are not too tired of me mentioning Roald Dahl in every post I write (or almost every post). What can I say, Roald Dahl is the paragon of children's literature so I compare everyone else to him.

Even if you are not going on a vacation over spring break try listening to an audio book with your kids. If anything it will be something new and fun to share with your children (or spouse, or alone, or whatever way because they are so much fun).