The girls and I have long discovered the joys of audio books. We got into them when we started homeschooling.
Our curriculum of choice, Sonlight. needs a lot of reading, and read-alouds. With my read-aloud experience limited to, "Mr. Brown is upside down" and "I want to be your personal penguin. I want to walk right by your side," reading aloud--with the matching voices and emotion and modulation--is difficult for me. Which is my I love audio books.
Henry Huggins, read by Neil Patrick Harris, had the girls hooked. Imagine--they sat fairly still for two hours, just listening. I decided to get another audio book, one of the most difficult for me to read aloud: Johnny Tremain. Then The Penderwicks. This one, the girls listened to over and over and over until The Hubby and I have memorized it. In fact they loved it so much we got the first four books in the series, and the last one on Audible again.
Recently, the girls were gifted with an Audible subscription, so we look forward to building their collection of audio books.
But on to the free audio books. I discovered SYNC, an audio book literacy program that aims to get teens to listen and read more (my kind of advocacy!). Every year, from April 25 to August 1, they give away a pair of themed audio books weekly. This week, for example, I was able to download a full production of Othello! Narrated by the likes of Ewan MacGregor, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Tom Hiddleston.
You will need the Overdrive app though, but it is free. Just remember to go to the site weekly, because each audio book pair is only available for a week.
Happy listening!
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