10 More Audiobooks Your Whole Family Will Enjoy

It's that time of year again. Time for holiday travel, which means lots of audiobooks are needed. It's become a Thanksgiving tradition for  us to revisit some of our favorites like Grandma Dowdel and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog. Here are some more of our all-time favorites if you need some inspiration for that next long road trip.

 

Mercy Watson Collection by Kate Dicamillo

Take my favorite author Kate DiCamillo, add in a pig who loves toast with a great deal of butter, plus our favorite audiobook reader of all time: Ron McLarty. You get audiobook magic.There are two different Mercy Watson collections on cd, and all wonderful. Your youngest listeners will especially enjoy these.

 

The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright

We love Elizabeth Enright's books so much, and we especially enjoyed the family adventures of the Melendy Family. Each Saturday, one of the four children go on a solo adventure in the city. Be sure to follow-up with the sequels: The Four-Story Mistake, Then There were Five, and A Spiderweb for Two.

 

Come on Seabiscuit by Ralph Moody!

Even though the grown-ups knew the story from the movie Seabiscuit, we were all still riveted by Ralph Moody's book. Read by Jim Weiss who is one of the masters. Did you know this was one of Lauren Hillenbrandt's  favorite books as a kid and inspired her to write Seabiscuit:An American Legend.

 

Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen

This is a classic Newbery Medal-winning book that you may not have encountered. Such a beautiful story of a family healing from the affects of war and the love of neighbors. This is a full cast recording, which always takes some adjustment, but worth a listen.

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Cheaper by the Dozen is one of those audiobooks that the kids will enjoy, but the adults will enjoy on a whole different level. First off, it's very funny, and if you have even a semi-large family, you will definitely appreciate the Gilbreth's family's antics. Wonderful.

 

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm by Betty MacDonald

The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books were some of my absolute favorites as a kid. I have found them just as charming and funny listening to them as an adult, though now I have a greater appreciation for the 1950s descriptions of jello salads.Your younger kids will especially love these, and maybe learn some lessons too. Look for all the sequels too!

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

During our Anne of Green Gables kick, we listened to both the Blackstone audio reading of Anne and the Focus on the Family radio theater version. We enjoyed both, but the kids chose the Blackstone reading by Susan O'Malley as their favorite. I know we'll be listening to these again.

 

Trixie Belden: The Secret of the Mansion by Julie Campbell

Our whole family got hooked on the Trixie Belden mysteries. Unfortunately, only the first 4-5 are on audio. We loved the characters and the fact that Trixie and her friends were a little younger, so the mysteries weren't as frightening as some of the Nancy Drew mysteries. Make sure you listen to them in order. Also led to a slight obsession with 1950s era trailers on the kids' part.You can check out other mystery audiobooks we've loved here.

 

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler  by E.L. Konigsburg

I'm a sucker for mysteries set in museums and libraries and From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler  by E.L. Konigsburg is the classic that started it all. Claudia and her brother James run away and hide in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. While they are there they find themselves in the middle of a mystery.

Charlotte's Web by E.B White

This audiobook is a rare gift. Charlotte's Web read by E.B. White himself. It's so good.

BONUS:

Find the White Horse by Dick King-Smith
We love Dick King-Smith's books, and though I won't call this a classic, we were entertained by the big white dog Lubber and friends as they try to make it home to the two old ladies he lives with. The ladies were especially funny!

The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin

In her post Newbery/ Caldecott 2015: The Summer Predictions Edition at A Fuse #8 Production, Elizabeth Bird noticed a trend of doom and gloom in this year's children's books. I've noticed it in the past few years as I've tried to read the Newbery-winning books. There are just a lot more ghosts hanging around in kids' books lately. Things have gotten creepier. I have never really cared for scary books, and some of my kids are very sensitive about these kinds of things. So I was grumping to myself, where are the Beverly Clearys, the Elizabeth Enrights: the folks writing books about ordinary families doing life together and getting into scrapes that usually turn out all right in the end, but doing it with humor and great writing too? My kids love these kinds of books.

Then I was grabbing a big stack of audiobooks at the library that I hoped would appeal to my seven and under crowd, and I picked up The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin. This is exactly what I had been looking for in a book: the modern-day equivalent to those great old-fashioned family books like All-of-a-Kind Family and Betsy Tacy. When the book opens, the family is celebrating the Chinese New Year and the Year of the Dog. Pacey, the middle sister, hopes that this year she will find friendship and find her special talent and purpose in life. The year turns out to be eventful. She meets Melody, the new Chinese-American girl at school, and they become best friends. Together they navigate science fairs, Halloween costumes, writing contests, and Taiwanese-American family life and culture. We especially enjoyed all the stories told by the mother about various family members and growing up in Taiwan.

The reader of the audiobook Nancy Wu is really good. Books written in first person can be tricky. I have a really low tolerance for grown women narrators who try to do a little girl voice. They always seem to end every sentence in up-speak so that the character sounds ditsy even though they're not. Nancy Wu doesn't fall into this trap. She makes Pacey sound just right and does the voices of the other characters like the Chinese parents really authentically too.

After listening in the car, the girls demanded that we take the cd inside so we could finish listening over lunch. Then Ella listened to it again, this time while wearing her Chinese dress, and she asked if we could do a Chinese tea party again.

There's been a rising awareness of the lack of diversity in kids' books. I really hope that the future holds more books like these that give us a glimpse of the ordinary daily life of people from different ethnicities and cultures. We are really looking forward to reading the sequels: The Year of the Rat and Dumpling Days.

Audiobooks for Young Detectives

There are two sure signs of a good audiobook.

1.         You find yourself sitting in the driveway listening to the cd even though you’re already home.
2.   You pick up Dad from work and he says in an injured tone, “You listened to Nancy Drew without me!”

My first foray into the world of chapter books as a young child was when my mom let me read her set of Bobbsey Twins books. I loved these gentle mysteries starring two pairs of twins. When I had read all of her copies, I got special permission to go over into the big kid section of the school library and check out more. I can still remember the thrill of it all, going over by myself into these mysterious shelves of big books. 

Though I loved Bert and Nan and Freddie and Flossie, I did not ever cross over into the world of Nancy Drew. Since my oldest daughter loves listening to mysteries and had already worked her way through Nate the Great and Encyclopedia Brown, and asked if there are any girl detectives out there. I decided to check out Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene, read by Laura Linney. We were all hooked. Laura Linney really captures the feel of the 1950s era and Nancy’s breezy confidence. In fact after listening to The Secret of the Old Clock as well as The Hidden Staircase and The Bungalow Mystery, I’m not sure I could read Nancy Drew now without hearing Laura Linney’s voice in my head. I love the way that Nancy never charges off heedlessly into a mystery. She always takes the time to change out of her party dress, put on sensible walking shoes and grab a cardigan if she's going out sleuthing. Smart lady and a great role model!

For the most part the mysteries are not too scary, mostly about inheritances and band land deals. Though the Bungalow Mystery did have a scene where Nancy and another man were chained in a basement, which was a little tense, and made us decide to hold off on the rest of the series until the girls are older.

Some other favorite mysteries:

Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat: The Nate the Great series are easy-readers, so it’s a great starter series for younger kids. The characters are quirky and the mysteries usually involve friends and pets. Ella listened to these each about three times

.

Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol: Encyclopedia Brown is a classic. The mysteries are short and usually center around Encyclopedia picking up some piece of trivia or fact everyone missed. Definitely enough interesting information to keep you intrigued.

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner: The  original Boxcar Children book was one of my favorites as a kid, but I had no idea there were so many mysteries afterward. The kids are independent and clever and the mysteries aren’t scary. I will warn you that these audiobooks do have a theme song. Yes, a theme song that your entire family will be humming the rest of the day..”Boxcar children are on the case!”

A-Z Mysteries by Ron Roy: This newer series has kids solving mysteries for each letter of the alphabet. Most sets of discs we checked out included 3-4 mysteries. I found myself often listening along and trying to figure out the solution.

10 Audiobooks Your Whole Family Will Enjoy

(or How to Survive 14 Hours in the Car with Small Children)

Since we live a very-long car drive away from my parents, I have spent years trying to figure out how to occupy small children on road trips. I have tried everything Pinterest  has to offer from busy bags to snack trays. I've tried backpacks full of toys, sing-a-longs, and dvds. Word to the wise: never teach children the song "Going on a Bear Hunt" at the beginning of a trip. We even once let our toddler methodically tear off every tab from a lift-the-flap book because it kept her quiet for a few hours.

Then a few years ago, I grabbed a couple of audiobooks from the library. For some reason, my then four-year-old liked the looks of Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. I also grabbed the sequel, Super Fudge. We popped the cds in and started listening to the adventures of Peter and Fudge. When we stopped to stretch our legs at a store, the children started begging to go back to the car and chanting "More Fudgie! More Fudgie!" That's when I knew I was on to something.

Now before a trip, I pack a big bag of snacks and an equally big bag of audiobooks from the library. The kids grab a couple of small toys each, but the first thing they ask is, "Story, please."

Audiobooks have tons of benefits.
1. Hours of read-aloud time from great literature instead of hours spent singing the Strawberry Shortcake songs over and over in your  head. 
2. Whereas a dvd may get you through 90 minutes of a trip. A longer audiobook will last five to six hours.
3. No fancy equipment needed. Free from the library.
4. It's enjoyable for the whole family and educational.

Here are our family's all-time favorite audiobooks.  Hope you enjoy.

1. A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck, read by Ron McLarty.
It's become our unofficial tradition to listen to this trilogy of books from Richard Peck (A Year Down Yonder, A Season of Gifts) on our Thanksgiving trip each year. They only get better with listening. Joey and his sister Mary Alice spend their summer with their grandmother in a little town in Illinois. Grandma Dowdel is larger than life and one of the funniest characters in literature. Ron McLarty is our favorite audiobook reader and a perfect fit for this series. His old-lady voice is spot-on. I guess I should warn you that there is a corpse in the book and frequent use of a double-barrel shotgun and a lot of drunk men singing in their underwear, so if that's not your taste, well, listen anyway.

 2. Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, read by Colleen Delany
This was our family's top pick from last year. Portia and her cousin Julian discover an abandoned lakeside community and eccentric elderly brother and sister, Pindar Payton and Minnehaha Cheever, who live there. We fell in love with every part of this book from the secret clubhouse the children build in the attic of one of the Victorian mansions to the ancient clothes and cars and the "heavily-embroidered names" of the characters. We followed it up with every Elizabeth Enright book we could find.

3. The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog by Dave Barry, read by the author.
We have listened to this Christmas book several time. It's funny, as you might expect from Dave Barry, but it's also quite warm and touching. Set in the 1960s, Doug Barnes is playing a shepherd in the Christmas play at the Episcopal church. When his sister's beloved dog dies right before the pageant, the family needs a miracle to get through the Christmas season. Catholic vs. Episcopal nativity prank wars, goofing off at the pageant, an invasion of ants in family car, and a lot of frozen bat poop make for a very funny story. 

4. Fair Weather by Richard Peck, read by Estelle Parsons
Set in 1893, three country siblings, their grandfather and his dog, Tip, attend the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition. Along with Richard Peck's great sense of humor, you get a great history lesson into the changes going on at the end of the 19th century. Estelle Parsons narration is really terrific too.

5. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate Dicamillo, read by Cherry Jones
When Opal moves to a new town with her distracted preacher father, she finds friendship in the form of a dog named Winn-Dixie. Winn-Dixie brings a cast of eccentric, but loving people into Opal's life. Kate Dicamillo is one of my favorite authors and this is one of my favorite books by her. Of course, all of the dog-lovers in our family were especially fond of this title.

6.The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White, read by the author
The Trumpet of the Swan is a classic about a swan with no voice who learns to play the trumpet and finds love. This audiobook is especially great because it's read by E.B. White. We loved this story and are always on the look-out for swans.

7. The Doll People by Ann M. Martin, read by Lynn Redgrave
A 100-year-old porcelain doll family meet their new neighbors, the plastic Funcrafts and together they solve a mystery and find a missing member of the family. We loved Lynn Redgrave's narration especially her different accents for the doll families. There are two sequels also read by Redgrave.

8. All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor, read by Suzanne Toren
A big family of girls growing up in New York at the turn of the century. Simple family adventures and a look into Jewish culture and holidays. Suzanne Toren really captures the different voices well.

9.The Penderwicks, A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall read by Susan Denaker
The Penderwicks  has all the charm of classic family adventure books like ones by Elizabeth Enright, but in a modern-day setting.

10. Pie by Sarah Weeks, read by Kate Rudd
A mystery involving a top-secret pie crust, a fat cat named Lardo, and a young girl who learns the real secret to baking pie. This book introduced us to the fun of listening to mysteries as a family. While there is a funeral at the beginning, the mystery stays warm and sweet instead of spooky. And it caused our toddler to chant, "Pie! Pie!" every time we got into the car.