It is time for our annual summer road trip, and we loaded up on audio books from the public library earlier this week. I then had to make a trip back to the library because Mr. Star Wars and Miss Priss listened to the first batch of books on CD in the TV room before we even packed the car.

Audio books are a great addition to long road trips. They keep voice levels low, so everyone can hear the narrator, and it provides a discussion topic for the whole group since everybody listens to the same story (we play our books on CD aloud– no earphones, although, that is an option). All ages can enjoy a story no matter the actual reading level of the book.

We have been listening to audio books for about 6 years. I cannot gush enough about the benefits of audio books. The narrator reads the book with the correct expression and syntax modeling good oral reading skills for a child. If a child follows along in the printed book at the same time he is listening, sight words, vocabulary, writing mechanics, and varied sentence construction are reinforced. When a group listens to an audio book, it tends to prompt more discussion. This will give a child extra practice re-telling a story, identifying conflicts in the story, and making predictions about future events– all of the skills a (good) active reader utilizes.

I posted an audio book recommendation list awhile back. Many of the books I had on my original list are still here. The Magic Treehouse series is still our favorite. Mary Pope Osborne narrates, and her voice works well. The stories are also a good length for our car attention span. Each story is about an hour and a half.

• Magic Treehouse (any in the series) read by the author, Mary Pope Osborne
• The Boxcar Children read by Phyllis Newman
• Little House in the Big Woods (or any Little House book) read by Cherry Jones
• Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing read by the author, Judy Blume
• The BFG read by Natasha Richardson
  
• James and the Giant Peach read by Jeremy Irons
• The Bunnicula Collection read by Victor Garber
• No Talking read by Keith Nobbs
• Benjamin Pratt & The Keepers of the School: Fear Itself read by Keith Nobbs
• The Wizard of Oz read by Maureen Lipman
• The Year of Billy Miller read by Dan Bittner
• Heavy Hitters (or any in the Game Changers series) read by Fred Berman
• Ribsy (or any Henry Huggins book) read by Neil Patrick Harris
• Charlotte’s Web read by the author, E.B. White
• The 1oo-Year Old Secret (or any in the Sherlock Files series) read by David Pittu

Avoid:

• A Series of Unfortunate Events read by the author, Lemony Snicket.  (This was probably a bad choice on my part.  Not only was the author’s voice too nasal-y, the book is much darker read aloud, and the content was too old for my children’s ages.)

In my house, we all agree that the narrator is the key to a good audio book. What books have you enjoyed on tape? Who was the narrator?