Whatever Shall We Listen To?

Some of you may be gearing down for the summer, allowing for a lot of outdoor play time while the weather is good. This is great and just as needed as indoor book time. But I hope you aren’t gearing down and allowing your children to sit in front of the TV or video games and turn their brains to mush.

Whether it be for days when it’s too hot or stormy to play outdoors, or for while doing indoor chores, or for long trips in the car, when mom’s voice is worn out or she’s busy elsewhere, stories on CD are a great choice for an enriching pastime.

Our whole family loves listening to all of the recommendations below, but I’ve divided them into target age groups to help you choose. Links are given for those that are not available through our website. For others just browse our catalog pages. The ones in bold print are available through us, others may be.

Some of our favorites for the younger children are Your Story Hour and Patch the Pirate. There have been several others over the years – Jungle Jam and the older Adventures in Odyssey. We also have several audio books. We especially love the ones by produced by Blackstone Audiobooks. You can buy these on tape or CD or download many of them in mp3 format from Audible. Just a few of our favorite ones for little ones are Beatrix Potter’s stories, Winnie the Pooh, and Charlotte’s Web. And I can’t leave out the Elsie Dinsmore series, the favorite of our 7 yo for a couple of years now. For just plain music listening they love Judy Rogers’ CD’s, Go to the Ant and others, the children’s worship CD’s from Sovereign Grace ministries, the old Tiny Tot Pwaise series (are they still available?), as well as the music on Patch the Pirate.

Middle age children love Jonathan Park, the Kingdom series audio books, and Radio Theatre‘s Ben Hur, Squanto, and the Luke Reports. But my 5 yo loves Jonathan Park, Ben Hur, and Squanto as well. He likes the others, they just don’t hold his interest as long.

We think of the Radio Theater series and other advanced books for youth and adults, but my just turned 7 yo has loved and listened to Silas Marner and Les Miserables for 2 or 3 years. Others we have include the Hiding Place, and we just got Amazing Grace.

Just a few other audio books we enjoy as a family are Pilgrim’s Progress, Ivanhoe, Swiss Family Robinson, the Henty books, A Basket of Flowers, Robinson Crusoe, and there are many, many more. We listen to many of the classics, both literature and historical Christian great books on audio.

Also we belong to 2 email lists that send an audio story for children each week: Jim Erskin’s Living Books for the Ears and Robert Green’s You Need a Story.

Have a great time listening!

See our other posts on Audio Books – Part 1 and Part 2.