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Audiobook review: The Star of Kazan

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Title: The Star of Kazan
Author: Eva Ibbotson
Narrator: Patricia Connolly
Length: 10h 15m
Format: Full length story
Age group: 9+

When Sigrid and Ellie, maids for a family of Austrian musicians, find a baby abandoned at a small church among the Alps, they are utterly bewildered. They bring the foundling home to Vienna and eventually raise her as their own. All is well until Annika, now a young girl, unexpectedly inherits a box of costume jewelry, and a mysterious German aristocrat emerges claiming to be Annika’s long-lost mother.  Read more…Audiobook review: The Star of Kazan

Audiobook review: The Adventures of Ulysses

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Title: The Adventures of Ulysses
Author: Bernard Evslin
Narrator: Todd Haberkorn
Length: 4h 30m
Format: Full length story
Age group: 9+

The Adventures of Ulysses, by Bernard Evslin, is a vivid retelling of The Odyssey for tweens and teens. Odysseus’ desperate, decade-long quest to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, makes for a tale that is chock-full of adventure on the high seas.  Read more…Audiobook review: The Adventures of Ulysses

Audiobook review: Matilda

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Title: Matilda
Author: Roald Dahl
Narrator: Kate Winslet
Length: 4h 30m
Format: Full length story
Age group: 9+

If you aren’t enamored of Kate Winslet already, you are bound to be after listening to her reading of Roald Dahl’s Matilda. We were captivated by her telling of this dark but fascinating tale, in which – as many of you know – little Matilda Wormwood uses her genius and talents to escape mistreatment at the hands of many adults including a headmistress and her own parents. Winslet animates all from the shyest tyke to the stentorian Trunchbull with a superb range of voices and accents.  Read more…Audiobook review: Matilda

Audiobook review: Heart of a Samurai

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Title: Heart of a Samurai
Author: Margi Preus
Narrator: James Yaegashi
Length: 6h 15m
Format: Full length story
Age group: 10+

When 14-year old Manjiro, the son of a poor Japanese fisherman, finds himself shipwrecked on a deserted island with a rag-tag bunch of mates, he fears the worst. But rescue arrives in the form of an American whaling ship, and soon Manjiro finds himself amidst an international, possibly barbaric crew, sailing towards America. Curious, brave, adventurous, and aspiring above his lowly station to live by Samurai principles, Manjiro embraces this chance to learn about the wider world. Read more…Audiobook review: Heart of a Samurai

The magic begins when you open a book…

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This is perhaps most truly said of pop-up books, where the very act of turning a page mobilizes the mechanisms that get the book’s key characters and details leaping out at you, seemingly magically. With their hidden engineering and their vivid, 3-D imagery, pop-ups can entrance the most book-detesting kiddo. Especially because the latest pop-up book creators are taking their art and science to a whole new level. Read more…The magic begins when you open a book…

Some cool creativity-catalysts

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Wandering among the bookstands at Hubbub Boston earlier this year, my son picked up two books at the Usborne booth and begged me to buy them: Write Your Own Adventure Stories, and Write and Draw your own Comics. I parted with my cash somewhat grumpily (let’s just say it wasn’t the first purchase of the morning), but once we got home and took a closer look at these books together, I was super impressed. Read more…Some cool creativity-catalysts

Out of the desert and into wonderland, thanks to Brian Selznick

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Reading dry spells: Periods where nothing in the library entices, and the assigned books from school seem just another chore. Every reader has had those, and my boys have succumbed to them at various times. During one particularly arid spell, I was thrilled to discover Brian Selznick’s work on our public library shelves. These proved to be our ride out of the desert and back into wonderland. Read more…Out of the desert and into wonderland, thanks to Brian Selznick

Ghouls, ghosts, and some audiobook greats

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Here in New England, the signs are all around. Leaves are floating down and starting to rustle across the streets.  Storefronts are starting to fill up with seriously spooky stuff. It all means just one thing to kids – Halloween is around the corner.

So what’s on your playlist this October? Do you have a sufficiently spooky audiobook going, to set the tone for the season? To get you started, here are a few Read, Kids, Read! recommendations for the older set. Read more…Ghouls, ghosts, and some audiobook greats