Tell Me a Story

It's been a busy week, but here I am, back posting.

Over on her blog, Cheryl Rainfield pointed out some very reasonably-priced picture books in audio form on Audible.com, including Horton Hears a Who, Where the Wild Things Are and A Bad Case of Stripes.

This is great news for those of us who can't afford to buy the book and the CD packaged together, or who already have the book and want to audio.

Kids still want to be read to even after they can read to themselves, and for some kids having difficulty reading, hearing the words while seeing them on the page helps them connect the sounds with the letters. They're also useful for car trips. Come on, wouldn't you rather hear Green Eggs and Ham than CNN pundits on your car radio?

Lots of people disdain audiobooks for kids, thinking of them as cheating, but to my mind, it's just another way of experiencing a story. The only thing that's changed is the medium, and that not very much. The words are (usually) just being spoken, not acted out with special effects. Kids still have to fill in all the gaps with their own imagination, and iPods give you the choice to listen to audiobooks at a slower pace if you need the decoding time. (Do any other brands do that? I cleave unto iPod, I'm afraid.)

What do you do with audiobooks?