One of the highlights of our road-trips is the books on tape/CD that we listen to to pass the time. For this past trip, I didn’t do much preparation. I just stood in front of the shelf at the library and picked out a few that looked interesting. This method has had mixed success in the past as I have a problem with the way that “magic” is used in many books. In my humble opinion, psychic powers are not God-given and should not be used by the hero in a book. If you want to make the bad guys psychic, I can live with that. But I digress… This trips selections were Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, and 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith.
We started with Chasing Vermeer. It is a mystery story centered around a Vermeer painting. It was so promising and yet so disappointing!!! Great story possibilities but they insisted on including a psychic painting, a hero who used Pentaminos like a fortuneteller uses tarot cards, and the apparent worship of numbers (this last element was minor which I might have been willing to overlook if not for the other negative elements). What was so disappointing was that this would have been a terrific story without these occult devices. We did persevere and listen to the whole book because it was a mystery and we were interested in the ending. However, we had extensive conversations about what was wrong with this book!!!
Next we tried Harriet the Spy. We made it through about 1/4 of the first tape before we just plain gave up on it!!! Ugh!!!
Finally we put in 101 Dalmatians. This is the book on which the Disney movies are based. It was super!!! It was more complex than the Disney movie and we really enjoyed it. This one I would highly recommend!!!
Given the dreadful lack of success we had with my book selections, Julie lent us some of her books on CD to listen to on the way home. We listened to The Last Viking about St. Magnus of 12th Century Scotland and To Heaven Through a Window about St. Gerard of Italy. Both were terrific, if not what I expected. They are dramatizations of each of the saints lives but there is no attempt to use the accents or language of the time periods. However this being said, the stories were wonderful and well worth listening to!!! Thanks Julie!!!
If you have any recommendations, I’d love to hear them. Our late February/early March road-trip will be here before we know it!!!
We love the 101 Dalmatians audio book!
Just curious… Did you make the move for ease of use, or better goodies, or? Just wondering as I’ve often wondered if I could do better than my provider…
I don’t know why I’ve never even thought of these for my kids to listen to while on trips!!! My daughter Emily just loves 101 Dalmations! I’ll have to check the collection at my library.
Thanks for stopping by my site! Have a nice weekend!
Lisa
I think the fact that I have four girls influences our favorites, but our favorites are any of the Narnia Chronicles, The Penderwicks (we must listen to this one 4 times a year or more!)
and the audio “drama” version of Little Women from Focus on the Family. Oh, and any of the Little House books! We love audiobooks around here. 
we make a lot of long trips. our favorite audio books have been: anything by radio theatre (focus on the family.) the first mitford book was excellent (we did not care for the rest of the series and that’s how we found out that it was the radio theatre that we enjoyed.) back of the north wind, les mis, and squanto were also done as radio theatre. other audio books we enjoyed include sign of the beaver, witch of blackbird pond, wheel on the school. for our upcoming trip, we have johnny tremain and island of the blue dolphin.
thanks amy for the little women suggestion!