I dunno about you, but my kids really enjoy listening to books on tape / audio books, and so I was pretty excited to see that Amazon.com’s new acquisition Audible.com has launched a site specifically focused on children’s material called AudibleKids.
What’s interesting is that the material is broken down both into categories (Animal Stories, Biographies & History, Classics & Poetry, Fables, Fairy Tales & Myths, Fiction, Mysteries, Nonfiction, Parenting & Teaching, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Study Guides & Foreign Language) and by age and school grade.
Now maybe it’s just me, but do we want kids listening to parenting audio books? 🙂
When I got a press release about AudibleKids it highlighted that there would be free content on the site too, but I have to admit that digging around, I can’t seem to find any. Can you?
Ah, I’m wrong! On the lower left corner of the home page is a link to the “Reading is Fundamental” program, which (if the link works) you can get to here: RIF on AudibleKids. Currently this area features free audio content from O. Henry (Gift of the Magi), Edgar Allen Poe (The Tell-Tale Heart), Rudyard Kipling (Rikki-Tikki-Tavi), Washington Irving (Rip Van Winkle), and even an Interview with Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler), all free.
Notice that basically none of this is appropriate for the younger set, but for that you might want to check out sites like storynory.com [Thanks for the tip, Chris!] and even the wonderful Project Gutenberg site, where it has a human read audio books (differentiating from computer-read audio books, which won’t keep anyone’s attention for more than about 90 seconds!)
Still, we mostly enjoy audio books like Ralph S. Mouse and Alice in Wonderland, but having the ability to download a half-dozen new audio books for the kids – hopefully free, but I can drop a few dollars if it means peace and harmony in the car – is a big win. And as for me, well, I have been hooked on audio books for years.
That is awesome, my eldest can’t get rested at night without a good story to listen to as he drifts off. We’ve about made it through all the library has to offer, so this is good news.