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Listen to This! Audio Books
Families can share audio books while traveling in the car or listen together at home. It's a great way to enjoy a good story. In addition, children usually understand language at a higher level than they can read it, so even though the audio books recommended here are suggested for children six and up, many younger children will also enjoy hearing these dramatized books. Browse our other audiobook list, Listen Up!
The first in a series of autobiographical chapter books about Tomie dePaola's early years, this story focuses on his family's move from their apartment in Meriden, Connecticut, to the now famous address, 26 Fairmount Avenue. This Newbery Honor book is sprinkled with humorous sketches, and is ideal for reading aloud and for the sharing of family stories.
Meet Laura and her family in this first of the Little House series in their cozy Wisconsin log home. Setting and characters come alive through the vivid detail of family life and living in the 1870s. The calm narration mitigates the more explicit particulars of pioneer life.
This brief biography begins when 9-year-old Isabella is sold at a slave auction in Kingston, New York. It continues as she transforms into the woman best known as Sojourner Truth, an outspoken critic of slavery and proponent of women's rights. Also included are a dramatic reading of Truth's famous "Ain't I a Woman" speech and a stirring hymn written and often sung by Truth.
Ramona is ready for the challenges of a new school — without her older sister. It's a year of change for the Quimby family and if everyone else can adjust, so can Ramona. The normal challenges of family life come alive here with verve and humor.
Harold the family dog narrates three stories of life with supernatural suspicions which begins with Bunnicula, the bunny with fangs. In the Howliday Inn while boarding at the Chateau Bow-Wow, Harold and Chester (the Monroe cat) encounter a werewolf, perhaps. Chester and Harold must stop zombie vegetables when the Celery Stalks at Midnight. Over-the-top humor is very appealing to a broad range of listeners (including adults!).
When siblings, Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund are sent away from London air-raids during World War II, they are placed with an old man in the country. There, they enter another time and place through an old wardrobe found by Lucy. This early installment in the Narnia Chronicles has been lovingly adapted into a sophisticated 2005 movie.
Because of a mix-up, best doll friends Annabelle and Tiffany are sent to the wrong house where they must deal with Mimi, a doll who thinks she's the queen of all and whose behavior is perfectly ghastly. Readers who were first introduced to these characters in Doll People will enjoy seeing them again.
Joe, Jane, Sylvie, and young Rufas — the Moffat children — live with their widowed mother on New Dollar Street in Cranbury, Connecticut. Though they live in the early 20th century, the clear characterizations bring each Moffat alive for a new generation and provide a reminder that family life and laughter can be timeless.
Distinct stories which involve a mouse, a human princess, and a rat seamlessly come together to surprise and absorb readers as they see the struggle between light and dark in this Newbery-winning novel.
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