Good audiobooks for kids?

[alexsam]

DS is 4. He is nothing short of OBSSESSED with Winnie The Pooh. We have been reading the original AA Milne books for years, literally every day. We just got him the unabridged audiobooks of Pooh and he LOVES them. We are a tv-free family and so the audiobooks are great for when I am making dinner.

Any recommendations foe other great audiobooks for a 4 yr old?

[annettemarie]

Some of our favorites have been:
The Ramona books (read by Stockard Channing)
Mary Poppins (the audio recording of this is great, but I forget who wrote it)
Sarah Plain and Tall
The Door in the Wall
The Little House books
The Narnia books
Mandi (written and read by Julie Andrews)
The Secret Garden

We really liked the Winnie the Pooh audio books too!

[Traci mom23boys]

Checkout www.Chinaberry.com, they always pick the very best audio books.

My boys LOVED Jim Weiss recordings.

~Traci

[3boobykins]

We're a total audiobook family--dh edits them for a living, I proof all his work, so I listen to them daily, and the kids go to sleep to them every night, and listen in the car sometimes as well. I second the Beverly Cleary books. Stockard Channing's narration is wonderful. She does the best kid voices ever. Neal Patrick Harris also did some of the Henry Huggins books, and is also excellent. Our kids also love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, read by Eric Idle, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, also Idle, and James and the Giant Peach, read by Jeremy Irons. There is also a brand audiobook of Alice and Wonderland out, read by Michael York, that is excellent.

Random House has a series of stories read by celebrities, all with original music, called Rabbit Ears, that are very, very well performed and produced--folk and fairy tales, stories from around the world, tall tales and legends, etc.

Also, Jim Weiss and Bobby Norfolk are wonderful storytellers, with many audio productions available.

We get all of these out of the library on CD, by the way.

[Katie Bugs Mama]

I second (or third) everything listed above. In addition, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, Fudge-a-Mania, and Double Fudge, all by Judy Blume, are a lot of fun. The audio versions are read by the author, and she does a really great job.

[holyhelianthus]

Check out the free children's podcast Storynory. It so rocks!

[loitering]

Whatever you do, use caution if considering the Curious George books-on-cd! Ds loves CG so he got a set of the cd's that came with the stories in a big book. But the stories are actually the classic stories, not the newer ones, so they're a bit odd. There is pipe smoking in every story (George even smokes one in the first story), and George gets put in jail because he accidently calls the fire department.

[annettemarie]

Originally Posted by loitering

Whatever you do, use caution if considering the Curious George books-on-cd! Ds loves CG so he got a set of the cd's that came with the stories in a big book. But the stories are actually the classic stories, not the newer ones, so they're a bit odd. There is pipe smoking in every story (George even smokes one in the first story), and George gets put in jail because he accidently calls the fire department.

Huh. Well that's good to know.

I can only imagine the danger a headless pipe-smoking monkey would get into.

[beanma]

Padington Bear is good. It's narrated by a British actor whose name I have forgotten, but we checked it out of the library and have enjoyed it. It has different chapters, much like Pooh, which stand alone nicely.

Also gotta second Ramona narrated by Stockard Channing. I thought it was hilarious. Not sure a 4 yr old would get it all, though. My kids didn't like it, but dd1 finds the dramatic tension of Ramona almost getting in trouble all the time too much to deal with.

We also like Jim Weiss — the Uncle Wiggly stories might be right up your guy's alley. Pretty Pooh-ish.

Have fun!

[aprons_and_acorns]

We love listening to stories, I'm so glad to find this thread and all of the suggestions here.

My son loves the Francis stories by Russell Hoban. We have a CD with four of them (read by Glynnis Johns) and he listens to it all the time. One of the stories, Bedtime for Francis, has a reference to spanking that some parents would find objectionable. We are a GD family but I am ok with the story for DS. YMMV of course, I think there's been a thread (or two) here at MDC about Betime for Francis!

We also have several Barefoot Books with CDs included. Two of my son's favorites are Story Time and Story Tree. Each one has 6-7 short stories, some old favorites like Magic Porridge Pot and Three Billy Goats Gruff, and some that were new to all of us.

We download Story Nory and another podcast called Children's Stories from the Forest (I think that's the name of it) and have found some favorites that way as well. I would love to hear about any other Podcasts for children that you all are downloading.