1. What audio books would interest my preschoolers? They love Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little and Dr. Seuss and I am getting sick of all three so I need more ideas. Must have clever dialogue and a good, wholesome, non-violent plot.
2. I would love good bloggers who write write well and are funny. (Because you can write well and not be funny, or you can be funny and not write well.) I'd like some bloggers who are both. Or, if not funny, then witty or charming. Or interesting. The topic isn't as important to me as the quality of writing.
3. Does anyone follow any other book blogs? Because I'd love to find a handful of blogs who have good book recommendations. Requirements: they can't read smut. No smut. And no froof. And If these bloggers tell me that Nicholas Sparks or Jack Weyland is the best author that they've ever read, I will say, "No thank you." I will say it nicely, but I will say no.
9 comments:
You have to check out http://www.graspingforobjectivity.com-- She's not Mormon but is Christian. She's from Alabama, has a young daughter and then also is pregnant with her second. She cracks me up on an almost daily basis.
Also, Dawn Ackroyd - a good online friend of mine from Canada. She is LDS and has two kids. Her kids are older ... She also blogs about books.
http://ackroydhouse.blogspot.com/
Not sure if this non-violent enough for your kids, but mine loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It has to be the version read by Roald Dahl. The other one doesn't compare. They also loved Pippi Longstocking on audio. BTW, I'm Jenny B's sister.
Oh one more thing . . .
My blog isn't especially witty or charming, but I do have a picture you might enjoy of Jenny http://happyhartz.blogspot.com/2010/09/awesome-august.html
Here are two blogs that I think are funny and well-written; although, I'm not really sure about the well-written part. I'm not a great judge there, but I like the things they say on their blogs. They are funny partly because I know both moms from Seattle and know their families. I'm not sure how funny they'd seem to people who don't know them. That said, you can check them out and see what you think:
http://caileankohagen.blogspot.com/
http://thenuggetfam.blogspot.com/
I should mention that I also like your family blog, but I would like it better if it were public! I always forget to check it, and then I'm so far behind. I think I'm your visitor from Bedford, VA; although, I'm not sure where that is. Must be somewhere around here.
Sorry I don't have any suggestions about book blogs. Most of the ones I read are homeschooling blogs.
I do know a bit about audio books for kids though. My kids love audio books and we have always used them.
I downloaded a bunch of old recordings from Kiddie Records Weekly.
http://www.kiddierecords.com/
Mostly I have stuck to the fairy tales and music ones. Some are just silly and annoying but many of them tell great stories and have lovely classical music used in the background. Rusty in orchestraville is one of my kids favorites!
We also borrow a lot of Jim Weiss books from the library. They go through everything from historical stories, biographies, American tall tales, fairy tales and even Shakespere. We love all of these. Here is the Amazon page for them
http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Weiss/e/B000APPFU0/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
but the library has most of them.
The library also has a full section of picture books that have a CD to go along with them.
We have also gone through a bunch of full length chapter books. I don't know how many we have gone through. At least one or so a week for years. I think for preschool age kids, Winnie the Pooh, The Trumpet of the Swan, Mr. Poppers Penguins would be about the same level as Charlotte's Web. My boys loved Homer Price too. But they are a little older than yours.
We use our library's collection extensively as you can tell!
I don't read many book blogs, besides yours, and those I do are specific to certain book series. Though you might like John Granger's blog (http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com).
Audiobooks I know how to get!
I just found out from Vickie that you can download audiobooks for free from the Santa Clara county library website.
Check out http://librivox.org/ It's similar to Project Gutenberg, but for audio books.
There is an iPhone app with free audio books too (http://blog.travelingclassics.com)
1. For audiobooks, we love love love the Twits read by, I think, Alfred Molina. Also, shameless self-plug, I wrote stories for a series of audiobooks called PlainTales (the website is PlainTales.com). They had a pretty small run so may be hard to find at a library (hello inter-library loan), but I really liked how The Gingerbread Boy and the Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed cds turned out.
2. You probably read CJane already, right? She's the only one I can think of right now who's funny AND a good writer. Though if you're looking for home-related blogs, I can help.
3. I've never found a book blogger whose tastes meshed enough with mine for me to stick with, but I do read EmilyReads.com. It's book review haiku, and it's often laugh-out-loud funny, so even if I don't care about the book she's recommending, it only takes 5 seconds to read it.
Your kids might enjoy Hank the Cowdog books. My library has tons of them on audio, so we take them along on long car trips. They usually have a song or two and the reader is really good with different voices.
Side note: we actually listen to Hank because my husband loves those books and has since he was a kid. My girls will listen to them quite well, so I figure it works for everyone.
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