What's gonna happen, Mom?

~*~

This summer I had a hankerin' for a baked potato but didn't want to turn my oven on for an hour to bake one during the heat wave, so I went to Wendy's Restaurant and got it for a $1.00 on their value menu. Of course, when my children are with me, they ask for something too. On this trip, they got kids meals and instead of a toy, they received a audio book on CD. They both groaned in unison but I squealed with delight! I shared with them how fun an audio book could be! It's like hearing a bedtime story! Like children, even adults enjoy being read to! They didn't take the bait.

I love audio books but rarely buy them because they are soooooo expensive! Years ago when I traveled on the train, I would buy discount audio books on cassette and listen to them on my way to and from work because unless I had a seat to sit in, I couldn't read standing up - gave me a headache!

Anyway, about a week later on the way to school (after a sleep deprived and cross morning) I put one of their audio books on in the car. It's a 15 minute drive to school and to my surprise, when we arrived in the parking lot, my kids groaned again! But this time, it was because they were enjoying the story being read to them! When I parked the car, my son asked, "What's gonna happen, Mom?" I replied that we would pick up the story where we left off when I picked them up in the evening. "YEAH!!!!"

And so began their summer love of audio books! I recently won a blog giveaway of a Regency Era type book and there was a special little gift inside of a audio sampling CD of 6 different other regency era type audio books. The kids and I liked that one even more because the readers were trained in theatre and their brittish smooth, velvet-like voices made the listening experience even more enjoyable as the characters changed from chapter to chapter.

We've exhausted our tiny audio library now and the kids are on the look out for more when we are shopping but most are out of our budget range. However, last night I won an ebay auction of the unabridged audio cassette (9 in all) version of Jane Austen's Persuasion. The winning price.... . 99 CENTS! My kids have seen the movie already probably 25 times, so they will easily be able to follow along with the audio version. In the morning, I put a DVD on to listen/watch while I get ready for work at my vanity table.

Nothing can replace the look, feel, smell and experience of a hardcover book, but sometimes it's nice to enjoy an audio book!

~*~