A Good Story Can…

pass time,
open doors,
shift paradigms,
introduce unforgettable characters,
temporarily chase away stress and sadness,
hold the imaginations of three small children during a long car ride to and from school.

For the last two weeks, mornings have been a bit brutal—waking the kids at 6 to leave at 7 and arrive sometime before 8 (when school begins). It’s a 45-minute commute to school from the apartment (as we count down to the closing on our new house).

Our family grew accustomed to long walks and stroller rides during our time in Frankfurt’s Westend (when we opted not to have a car). However the kids are not used to long car rides. Long plane rides? Yes. Car rides? No.

We usually do a lot of singing, seat-dancing, and I-spying to pass the time in the car. In preparation for school, however, I decided to buy a few children’s audiobooks for the 30-45 minute drive.

While we have been reading to the kids since they were tiny (we’re currently reading Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden), I wasn’t sure how the audiobooks would be received.

They were a hit!

We began with a set of Dr. Seuss stories, and we’re now nearly finished with E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. This version has White reading his book, and although I’ve read Charlotte’s Web countless times, I think I’m enjoying the audiobook as much as the kids (especially my oldest).

I am surprised at how difficult it is to track down kids’ audiobooks. Does anyone else listen to kids’ books on cd?

We have a few more weeks until we close and move in to the new house. Any audiobook suggestions?

Published by Valya

Valya Dudycz Lupescu has been making magic with food and words for more than 20 years, incorporating folklore from her Ukrainian heritage with practices that honor the Earth. She’s a writer, content developer, instructor, and mother of three teenagers. Valya is the author of MOTHER CHRISTMAS, THE SILENCE OF TREES, and the founding editor of CONCLAVE: A Journal of Character. Along with Stephen H. Segal, she is the co-author of FORKING GOOD: An Unofficial Cookbook for Fans of The Good Place and GEEK PARENTING: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family (Quirk Books), and co-founder of the Wyrd Words storytelling laboratory. Valya earned her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her poetry and prose have been published in anthologies and magazines that include, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Kenyon Review, Culture, Gargoyle Magazine, Gone Lawn, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium. You can find her on Twitter @valya and on Mastodon.social @valya

2 thoughts on “A Good Story Can…”

  1. Natalka says:

    A friend of mine is blind, so I have become interested in audiobooks, even though I’ve never used one…and recently I read that Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader has an audio component…so then ALL e-books should be audible?

    HTH…blessed Koliada/Rozhnitsa, happy holidaze, and New Year

    -a new fan, who had googled “Ukrainian Tarot” and found the site about Silence of Trees, that led me here…..

  2. Valya Dudycz Lupescu says:

    Hi Natalka,
    I had not heard of Kindle having an audio component. I’ll have to check into it. Interesting.
    Koliada Blessings to you as well, and thank you so much for stopping by my site!

    Blessings,
    Valya

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