The Village - Are we there yet?
FAMILY
Are we there yet?
By Adam Frost
How audiobooks saved our family road trips.
Our family spends a lot of time in the car. For every major holiday, birthdays and random gatherings, we travel to Ottawa from Montréal to visit my wife’s family. Less frequently, we drive from Montréal to New Brunswick to visit mine and most of our family vacations are spent car camping everywhere in between. When our kids were really young, these drives were awesome. We just scheduled the drives around their naptimes and my wife and I could finally have some time to just talk. I used to jokingly call them our “State of the Union” conversations.
“What began as a strategy to make car rides bearable has now become a large part of our day to day.”
But sadly, all good things must come to an end and what seemed rather abrupt, our children decided to stop napping in the car. Our quiet and peaceful drives became two hours of complaints, shouting, poking, yelling and general mayhem. To my utter horror, I even found myself threatening to “turn the car around” on more than a few occasions.
We had decided early on that watching something on a tablet or phone would not be an option (we have since broken that rule for particularly long drives or as a special movie night replacement.) I am sure that if my wife had not picked up a few audiobooks on CD at that very moment, we probably would have ended up relying on some form of screened entertainment to preserve my sanity. Thankfully, she did and we have managed to keep our car almost entirely screen free as a result. More importantly my kids don’t complain about having to take long drives and we have been able to turn them into shared family story time. This has allowed for some really fun adventures where the journey is often as much fun as the destination. The only downside (if it has to be called a downside), is that I can’t even back out of the driveway without one of the kids already asking, “can we turn on the stories?” Our new rule is the story starts once we get on the highway.
“This has been a huge help in our constant struggle to limit their screen time.”
What began as a strategy to make car rides bearable has now become a large part of our day to day. Sometimes we’ll start a book on vacation and finish the book at bedtimes when we get home. Both my kids will often replay old stories while they work on Lego or crafts or when they are sick at home. I was seriously considering writing an entire article as an ode to Winnie the Pooh, as it gets replayed constantly. Somehow a suggested activity is met with a firm “no” on its own, but if paired with a “story” it is accepted. This has been a huge help in our constant struggle to limit their screen time.
While we have listened to a lot of books over the years, I thought I’d share the ones that got us started and a few of my personal favourites. Initially my wife purchased books on CD or borrowed them from the library. Some I purchased from Apple. Eventually I got a membership to Audible and I simply use my monthly credit to add to our library. I expect all of the titles I’m about to mention can be downloaded or streamed from a number of different places.
Early Days: When the kids were really young, they could listen to the same story over and over. These are shorter stories and were perfect for when we were still trying to coax a nap out of our children but they needed some help falling asleep. What really worked for us was beginning with stories that were driven by their accompanying music.
Classical Kids: These were the CDs my wife purchased initially. She feels that most of our success can be attributed to starting with these as the music is central to the stories. There are 8 titles, each focused on a composer. They are about 50 minutes long. They are dramatized so different actors play the different characters which I think makes them more interesting. Note different stories work better for different ages. We began with Mozart’s Magic Fantasy and ended with Beethoven Lives Upstairs. You might want to prelisten to ensure it is age appropriate for your littles.
A Gift for Sophie by Gilles Vigneault: This was a picture book that was gifted to us and that came with an accompanying CD. The CD had a narrated version of the story with music along with a number of additional songs. We had a number of these types of books which really helped the kids visualize the story as they listened to it in the car.
Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne: This album along with the follow-up The House at Pooh Corner are our favourite. They get played over and over in our house. While we are cooking, working on homework, playing games. Be sure to get the dramatized version narrated by Judy Dench, Stephen Fry and others. The stories are short so they are also perfect for shorter drives or as a break from a longer story. Each time we listen we discover something new and we often quote scenes from the books when they apply to whatever family situation is happening at the time.
Finding our stride
When my son was six we graduated to full on chapter books and never looked back. We were lucky that our daughter who is two years older was able to wait.
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling Books 1-7: There has been a lot of controversy surrounding J.K. Rowling recently that I do not want to ignore. However her books have become such an integral part of our family that it is impossible for me not to mention them here. The audiobooks are very good. In North America they are narrated by Jim Dale who gives each character their own voice. In fact, the narrator is so good that we have searched out other books narrated by him. We listened to the first 3 books in the first year and then one book each summer from then on. We are set to listen to the last book this year. After we complete the book, we get to watch the movie. If I could do it over, we would have listened to only one book a year, as I’m not ready for it to end. I highly recommend that you space out the books and not consume the entire series all at once especially if you start them when your kids are younger than 8. By book 4 they get very dark (book 3 if you count the movies).
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall Books 1-5: I would have probably started with these books before Harry Potter had I known about them. They feel like classics that have been around forever, so I was shocked to learn the first one was published in 2006. The stories centre around the adventures of the Penderwick family on summer holiday. The characters grow up a little more with each book and the author beautifully captures the romanticism of childhood. The narrator is excellent and both my son and daughter loved them equally. They are the perfect summer-vacation listen.
The Magic Misfits by Neal Patrick Harris Books 1-4: This was a really fun series with books that are a little shorter than the other series I suggested. It chronicles the exploits of a group of young magicians who all bring different skills to the table. Each book focuses on a different character in the group and has its own narrator, though Neal Patrick Harris appears in every book to teach listeners simple magic tricks they can try themselves. Warning, for our family, interest waned with the fourth book, but the first three had them constantly trying to impress us with their new magic tricks.
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson Books 1-4: This is another series narrated by Jim Dale and it is a fabulous reimagining of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. It can be a bit jarring to go immediately from a Harry Potter book to this series. I would say that these books are best suited for ages 8 and over.
About the Author: Adam Frost started working for Hatley right out of university 20 years ago. Along the way he got married to his wife of 15 years Annie and they have two kids: Emalyn and Henry. Both children have played integral roles as Hatley product testers and enjoyed short but successful modeling careers back when they were cute and well- behaved.
FAMILY
Are we there yet?
By Adam Frost
How audiobooks saved our family road trips.
Our family spends a lot of time in the car. For every major holiday, birthdays and random gatherings, we travel to Ottawa from Montréal to visit my wife’s family. Less frequently, we drive from Montréal to New Brunswick to visit mine and most of our family vacations are spent car camping everywhere in between. When our kids were really young, these drives were awesome. We just scheduled the drives around their naptimes and my wife and I could finally have some time to just talk. I used to jokingly call them our “State of the Union” conversations.
“What began as a strategy to make car rides bearable has now become a large part of our day to day.”
But sadly, all good things must come to an end and what seemed rather abrupt, our children decided to stop napping in the car. Our quiet and peaceful drives became two hours of complaints, shouting, poking, yelling and general mayhem. To my utter horror, I even found myself threatening to “turn the car around” on more than a few occasions.
We had decided early on that watching something on a tablet or phone would not be an option (we have since broken that rule for particularly long drives or as a special movie night replacement.) I am sure that if my wife had not picked up a few audiobooks on CD at that very moment, we probably would have ended up relying on some form of screened entertainment to preserve my sanity. Thankfully, she did and we have managed to keep our car almost entirely screen free as a result. More importantly my kids don’t complain about having to take long drives and we have been able to turn them into shared family story time. This has allowed for some really fun adventures where the journey is often as much fun as the destination. The only downside (if it has to be called a downside), is that I can’t even back out of the driveway without one of the kids already asking, “can we turn on the stories?” Our new rule is the story starts once we get on the highway.
“This has been a huge help in our constant struggle to limit their screen time.”
What began as a strategy to make car rides bearable has now become a large part of our day to day. Sometimes we’ll start a book on vacation and finish the book at bedtimes when we get home. Both my kids will often replay old stories while they work on Lego or crafts or when they are sick at home. I was seriously considering writing an entire article as an ode to Winnie the Pooh, as it gets replayed constantly. Somehow a suggested activity is met with a firm “no” on its own, but if paired with a “story” it is accepted. This has been a huge help in our constant struggle to limit their screen time.
While we have listened to a lot of books over the years, I thought I’d share the ones that got us started and a few of my personal favourites. Initially my wife purchased books on CD or borrowed them from the library. Some I purchased from Apple. Eventually I got a membership to Audible and I simply use my monthly credit to add to our library. I expect all of the titles I’m about to mention can be downloaded or streamed from a number of different places.
Early Days: When the kids were really young, they could listen to the same story over and over. These are shorter stories and were perfect for when we were still trying to coax a nap out of our children but they needed some help falling asleep. What really worked for us was beginning with stories that were driven by their accompanying music.
Classical Kids: These were the CDs my wife purchased initially. She feels that most of our success can be attributed to starting with these as the music is central to the stories. There are 8 titles, each focused on a composer. They are about 50 minutes long. They are dramatized so different actors play the different characters which I think makes them more interesting. Note different stories work better for different ages. We began with Mozart’s Magic Fantasy and ended with Beethoven Lives Upstairs. You might want to prelisten to ensure it is age appropriate for your littles.
A Gift for Sophie by Gilles Vigneault: This was a picture book that was gifted to us and that came with an accompanying CD. The CD had a narrated version of the story with music along with a number of additional songs. We had a number of these types of books which really helped the kids visualize the story as they listened to it in the car.
Winnie The Pooh by A.A. Milne: This album along with the follow-up The House at Pooh Corner are our favourite. They get played over and over in our house. While we are cooking, working on homework, playing games. Be sure to get the dramatized version narrated by Judy Dench, Stephen Fry and others. The stories are short so they are also perfect for shorter drives or as a break from a longer story. Each time we listen we discover something new and we often quote scenes from the books when they apply to whatever family situation is happening at the time.
Finding our stride
When my son was six we graduated to full on chapter books and never looked back. We were lucky that our daughter who is two years older was able to wait.
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling Books 1-7: There has been a lot of controversy surrounding J.K. Rowling recently that I do not want to ignore. However her books have become such an integral part of our family that it is impossible for me not to mention them here. The audiobooks are very good. In North America they are narrated by Jim Dale who gives each character their own voice. In fact, the narrator is so good that we have searched out other books narrated by him. We listened to the first 3 books in the first year and then one book each summer from then on. We are set to listen to the last book this year. After we complete the book, we get to watch the movie. If I could do it over, we would have listened to only one book a year, as I’m not ready for it to end. I highly recommend that you space out the books and not consume the entire series all at once especially if you start them when your kids are younger than 8. By book 4 they get very dark (book 3 if you count the movies).
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall Books 1-5: I would have probably started with these books before Harry Potter had I known about them. They feel like classics that have been around forever, so I was shocked to learn the first one was published in 2006. The stories centre around the adventures of the Penderwick family on summer holiday. The characters grow up a little more with each book and the author beautifully captures the romanticism of childhood. The narrator is excellent and both my son and daughter loved them equally. They are the perfect summer-vacation listen.
The Magic Misfits by Neal Patrick Harris Books 1-4: This was a really fun series with books that are a little shorter than the other series I suggested. It chronicles the exploits of a group of young magicians who all bring different skills to the table. Each book focuses on a different character in the group and has its own narrator, though Neal Patrick Harris appears in every book to teach listeners simple magic tricks they can try themselves. Warning, for our family, interest waned with the fourth book, but the first three had them constantly trying to impress us with their new magic tricks.
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson Books 1-4: This is another series narrated by Jim Dale and it is a fabulous reimagining of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. It can be a bit jarring to go immediately from a Harry Potter book to this series. I would say that these books are best suited for ages 8 and over.
About the Author: Adam Frost started working for Hatley right out of university 20 years ago. Along the way he got married to his wife of 15 years Annie and they have two kids: Emalyn and Henry. Both children have played integral roles as Hatley product testers and enjoyed short but successful modeling careers back when they were cute and well- behaved.