Thursday, January 26, 2017

Library Love - the (mostly) Audiobooks edition


Linking up with Alicia for another Library Love! Thanks to a friend's suggestion on the last library love post, we found a really great book about a digger that could appeal to the whole family: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Imagine my surprise when I found an audiobook version of it that was set to its own musical score (performed by the London Philharmonic no less)!


We listened to it once together, with me turning the pages - and then the next day, I found the wee girl in her room with the book and CD listening and "reading" the book herself! I sat down with her and didn't make any moves to turn the pages... she followed along herself and when it was all done, she turned to me and said, "That was fun! I'm going to do it again."

Pretty much my face afterwards.
My next thought (after gathering my jaw up off the floor) was to figure out how to capitalize on this. So what follows is all that I found at our library. We haven't actually listened to these yet, but I love (the idea of) them because they're read by famous actors and they come with original music to accompany the story. What I need now is the books to go along with them... hmmm...


Heather Forest - Sing Me a Story
I picked this one up because I thought singing songs about well-known stories might be a good way to introduce the stories themselves to the wee girl. We'll see!

Rabbit Ears Treasury of Fairy Tales Vol 2
This one has King Midas and the Golden Touch read by Michael Caine, with music performed by Yo-Yo Ma; and Jack and the Beanstalk read by Michael Palin.

Rabbit Ears Treasury of World Tales, Vol 2
This one has The White Cat read by Emma Thompson, and The Fool and the Flying Ship read by Robin Williams (I'm really looking forward to listening to this one!)


Little Bear and Little Bear's Friend by Else H Minarik
We read A Kiss for Little Bear last time, and because we loved it so much I wanted to find more Little Bear - and specifically the first one in the series. Turns out I couldn't find the first one last time because it was hiding in the audiobooks section! I'm curious to see how the wee girl likes these...

And now for the ones that are currently on the "Can't Stop Won't Stop Reading These" list:


King Jack and the Dragon by Peter Bently
This one is too cute. Three boys build a fort, defend it from dragons, and generally have a good time... until the "giants" come for them. The little dude loves this one and will actually cover his eyes when it gets to the "scary" part. (Bless.)

Oh look! More audio... ;)
Count these as my "sneaky geography lesson" books.
And there's more... but I think I'll stop here as these are our most worthy titles to share. I think the rest might be considered "mere twaddle," especially since one of them actually contains the line "And landed kersplat in a big pile of poo." (Poor Charlotte Mason is turning over in her grave now, I can just see it... ;) )

What have you been reading lately? And/or do you have any audiobooks that you can recommend?
Pay a visit to Alicia too for more suggestions!

3 comments:

  1. Wow! Guess it's a good idea to keep those audiobooks coming. I'm intrigued now to see what our library offers. Usually we just do the online hoopla ones (because they can't get lost.)

    My 3 year old picked out a Pete the Cat book last time. Is he a big deal? I guess I haven't seen any PTC books before. Anyway, this one was about magic sunglasses, and I couldn't help but think it seemed to be a thinly veiled reference to drugs. But maybe I'm reading too much into the glasses that make you stop caring about life once you put them on...

    PS-- You must tell me what book contains the line about the poo. My kids will think it's the best. ("Thelonius Monster's Sky-High Fly-Pie" is a favorite of theirs because of the ick factor.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! Yes, the book is called "The Great Sheep Shenanigans" by Peter Bentley. Very different from the "King Jack..."book.
      And we have that Pete the Cat book about the sunglasses... Ugh. It's dumb. Neither of my kids like it anymore, though they do like Pete in general. IMHO the only good PTC books are this button one and the "Brand New Shoes" one. All the rest are lame (though even the shoes one is a bit odd...) I think my kids like him because he's just such a funny looking cat and they get excited when they see him, but then we get the book home and they quickly lose interest because the stories are definite Charlotte Mason twaddle... Ain't no highly sophisticated language patterns going on in there! ;)

      Delete
    2. Just put The Great Sheep Shenanigans on hold at the library.

      And thanks for the PTC scoop. :)

      Delete