For the Love of Audio Books

“The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one is with another who shares the same books.”Katherine Mansfield

I love the way listening to audio books brings all my kids together.
Yesterday they spent the entire afternoon in the boys’ room listening to The Last Battle, a book they’ve read and listened to several times before. But we like to listen to our favorite books again and again. It just makes us love them more.
They were all in there together, drawing, building Legos, or just laying on the bed and soaking up the beautiful language and storytelling of one of CS Lewis’ masterpieces.
We don’t use earphones or earbuds when we listen to books, at home or in the car, because I love the way listening to a story together builds our relationships with one another.

 

The moment we put those ear buds in, we are shutting ourselves off from everyone around us. I work very hard to cultivate relationships within my family and so this “shutting off from one another” is the exact opposite of what I want to see happening.
Instead, I love to hear my kids laughing over a story together, or discussing the book as they listen to it together. We aren’t all separated from each other–we’re enjoying time together. I love the way, everyone is drawn into a room when an audio book is turned on. We’re pulled together by the magic of a good story.
We have beautiful conversations about whatever book we are listening to. Everyone chimes in, and we all relate to the book in different to ways, but we’re experiencing it together,  which creates such special bonds. We talk in the language of the books we’ve read. I often hear my kids say things like this, “you know that part in The Hobbit…” Or, “it’s like in Caddie Woodlawn when…”
The books we read together become shared experiences and create cherished memories just as family vacations and adventures do. In fact, the books we’ve read together are some of our favorite adventures.
 

I have always felt that putting something in, or over, our ears separated us from one another and I’ve never liked that. Even at 11 or 12 when I got my first Walkman, I didn’t like listening to it in the car because I was missing out on the conversation my parents were having. I hated sitting next to my mom while she drove, my headphones on, and not talking to her. It felt almost rude to me. But even more, l knew I wasn’t experiencing life with her. There would be no conversations about the simple things we saw as we drove, or the deeper conversations that might happen as we sat next to each other.
There wouldn’t be singing along together to the Sam Cook cassette playing in our hunk of junk Dodge Dart while my mom drove my brother and I to math tutoring. There’d be no laughing over silly stories together There wouldn’t be learning how to sit together in silence, each having our own thoughts, yet fully comfortable together in the quiet.

Building relationships is certainly easier when we are fully engaged with one another.
I suppose all those things played a part in my decision to keep our book time free from ear buds and headphones. It’s not that those things are bad in and of themselves. Or even that using them is bad. It’s just that for us, the experience of being together without them is better.
 

So how does this life style decision play out in our family, practically speaking?
Truthfully there is no grumbling about listening to books together because it’s something they’ve always done. This is our way of life and they don’t seem to mind it at all. The only problem that occurs occasionally is that someone is being too loud and interrupting the book. Then that person is asked to be quiet or leave the room. And the problem is solved.

We get most of our books from our subscription to Audible. This does have a monthly fee, but I consider it an essential part of our kids’ education and to our family life, so it is 100% worth the money. I get two credits to use a month and very rarely use more than those credits That means I do not spend anything beyond my monthly subscription fee. Sometimes we can purchase a whole series for one credit, like all the Ramona Quimby books. Or we purchase lots of long books, so we really make those credits count.
 

Our Audible books can be played on any computer or phone, so the kids can listen to them just about anywhere.
They often have the computer set up in the living room and gather there to listen to books.
They can also listen in their rooms on the laptop or on our family iPod.
We borrow books on cd from the library often and those get played on Lilly’s Hello Kitty “boom box” or on the computer.
No one has to stay in a room and listen to a book if they’d rather be doing something else.
Sometimes one kid is inside listening to a book while the others are playing outside or in another room drawing. But it just seems that once a book is turned on, they all just gravitate to where it is playing.
My kids have a hard time resisting stories.

We also listen to books in the car all the time.
My kids don’t mind long drives because they get to listen to books. In fact, short drives are far more troubling to them because they want to listen to the book longer.

Everyone takes turn choosing the books we listen to. Or we choose one together.
Occasionally there might be a groan when Davy picks “Tales of Brer Rabbit” agin. But mostly they are happy with each other’s book selections.
They just love listening to books so much that they are happy for every new book that is chosen.Or a beloved old book revisited.
 

Beyond the relational ways listening to books together has helped our family, it has also had an impact in other ways:
1.  We’ve grown our reading skills because of listening to challenging books from a very young age. My younger kids are always listening to books high above their reading level. But because of the constant exposure to these books, their comprehension skills and vocabulary are through the roof.  We also listen to all our books unabridged. It has never proven to be a problem for them–even with the most challenging books. They are building skills to become great readers.
2.  Everyone is exposed to a variety of genres, and authors they might otherwise not choose. Each of us has our favorite books of course, but since we are listening to books together, we are kept from choosing the same types of books over and over again. My kids are open to reading just about anything, because they’ve experienced so many different types of great books.
3.  We’ve learned the art of listening and paying attention. Listening to books that are challenging has taught all my kids the skill of being a good listener. They have to pay attention in order to understand what is going on in a story that may have lots of characters, an involved plot, advanced vocabulary, or complex sentence structure.
4. We’ve learned the importance of asking questions. Many of the books we listen to are higher level books. That means the younger kids will often stop and ask questions about what is going on, who a certain character is, or even say something like, “wait, what just happened?” If they were reading or listening alone, there would be no one to ask questions of, and I think the temptation would be to just stay lost. But because we’re listening together, asking questions is a normal part of the reading experience.
5.  We’ve learned the skill of summarizing, translating, re-telling , and explaining. As we listen to books together, and questions are asked, those questions must be answered. That means my kids are learning how to explain things to one another, and how to summarize what someone just missed or didn’t understand. Best of all, they are doing it in a natural, real life way.
6.  My kids are learning the joy and pleasure that comes from talking about books. The exchange of ideas and thoughts that come to us as we read (listen to ) a book together is a valuable skill that will translate to so many other parts of their life. It’s teaching them to be critical thinkers who can then discuss their thoughts. That’s a very practical part of this journey that I appreciate. But as I said before, they are also learning the joy and pleasure of discussing books. That to me is of great value as well. In fact, it may be my favorite part of this whole journey. Because there are few things I love to do more than talk about a book with my favorite little readers.
 

Now to get you started, here is a list of some of our favorite audio books

For the younger crowd:
*The Ramona Quimby Audio Collection narrated by Stockard Channing
*Charlotte’s Web narrated by EB White
*A Bear Called Paddington narrated by Michael Bond
*Mr. Popper’s Penguins narrated by Nick Sullivan
*The Courage of Sarah Noble narrated by Barbra Caruso
*The Peter Rabbit Collection narrated by Peter Batchelor

Books for older kids (but even my youngest has enjoyed listening to):
*The Yearling narrated by Tom Stechschulte
*The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy narrated by Rob Inglis
*The Princess and the Goblin narrated by Ian Whitcomb
*Johnny Tremain narrated by Grace Conlin
*Littel Women narrated by Kate Reading
*Caddie Woodlawn narrated by Roslyn Alexander
*The Borrowers series narrated by Rowena Cooper
*Father and I Were Ranchers (and the following books in this series) narrated by Ralph Moody
*Danny Champion of the World narrated by Peter Serafinowicz
*The Wind and the Willows narrated by Michael Hordern
*The Merry Adventures of Robinhood narrated by David Thorn
*The Chronicles of Narinia narrated by various narrators

These books are all available on Audible.
But you might be able to find them at your local library or on the site LibriVox, which offers many books to download for free.
 

I hope this glimpse into the way we experience books as a family will encourage you to listen to more books together. You don’t have to totally ditch those earbuds.But I promise the benefits that come when you share a book together as a family will make you want to tune into one another more, and tune out less.
Remember, you don’t have to go on fancy vacations, or grand adventures to create memories with your family. Making memories can be as simple as popping a bowl of popcorn and settling down with a fabulous audio book. You’ll laugh together, wonder together, and if you’re like my family, cry together. Best of all, listening to a book takes some time, so you’ll get to revisit that together time again and again until the book is done.
Its magic!
Don’t underestimate the power of books to bring people together.
For the love of (audio) books,

Greta

Poetry 101: Poetry Study on e e cummings

For many years now, I have been reading poetry to my kids, From the time they were born actually. My first aim was to simply get them to enjoy poetry. To love the sound of it, the rhythm, the music, and the language. When we started school, I kept reading them poetry. One or two poems a day, part of our morning meeting--the way we began school every day. After I read a poem a time or two, we'd talk about it. I'd ask them questions like, "what do you think this poem is about?" "What does it make you see?" "How does this poem make you feel?" "Do you think the poet had a message he wanted you to hear?" Talking about the poems quickly became very natural and we all enjoyed it. The next step was to slowly began introducing literary devices into our poetry talks. Personification, alliteration, symbolism, allusion. There were no tests or quizzes. It was easy to introduce those terms and what they meant as they came up when we read. I wanted these lessons to feel natural, never forced, or "schoolish". Instead I wanted them to be enjoyable, and yes, even fun. The kids ate it up, and poetry became one of my favorite subjects to teach my favorite students.

Lately though, I've wanted to do more with poetry. Or at least something different. I had laid a strong foundation, and it seemed like the right time to build up. Then the flash of idea came, and I decided to focus our poetry time on learning about one poet a month. We'd immerse ourselves in their life and their work. We'd read lots of their poems, memorize one or two, and illustrate some. We'd learn a bit about their artistic contemporaries and the other art being made during their life time. We'd even explore some of the history and what world events shaped their work. I was excited! It was time to go a little deeper in our poetry studies.

We started this month with our very first poetry study. I chose e e cummigs. For no other reason than I found an amazing book about him and wanted to have it in our collection. I knew a great book would make all the difference in how the kids responded to the poet. Turns out my hunch was right. It has been the perfect place to start.

We're only a couple weeks in and we're all loving it. Even though William says he's not really a big fan of e e's poems. "They're a little too weird," he said. But that's perfectly OK with me. That's part of what these studies are all about. I want to expose them to lots of different poets and poems and styles and voices, and to help them find the ones that resonate with them. And the ones that don't. Like I've said before, I'm not just here to teach them to learn to read and write, add and subtract. I'm here to make their world bigger. I'm here to help them love to learn. I'm here to light the fire.

So, just in case you're interested in incorporating any of this into your school days, here is what we're doing with our: e e cummings poetry study.

Main Text: Enormous Smallness: A Story of E E Cummigs 

We read this book over the course of 3 days. It helped to spread it out, allowing them time to think about who e e was, what he was doing, and become interested in his work.

Day 1: Introduce the poet ee cummings, and begin reading the book abut his life, "Enormous Smallness." Read about e e's childhood and up to his graduation from Harvard University. If you are not familiar with e e cummings (and yes, he liked his name spelt with all lower case letters) you can brush up on his life here.

Day 2: Continue reading from "Enormous Smallness". Read of e e"s move to New York, his sojourn in France during WWI, and the start of his career as a poet. Next we read one of his poems, "The Sky Was". That's when the real fun began! (You can find the poem here or in the book.) The first time I read it to the kids, I stumbled and could hardly get through it. I had to read it again, and then again, to really get through it and for it to make sense to us. By the second reading the kids had gathered around me and pointed out the words that went together and we laughed at how silly and strange it was. It was so much fun to see the way Cummings played with language, poetic form, and grammar.

And it was so good for them to see me struggling through a poem, not particularly enjoying it at first, but liking it more and more with each read. Poetry can be hard work. It takes patience and perseverance to read, understand, and enjoy it. But having this experience with my kids, I am modeling for them the exact way I want them to approach a poem. So I really, really, really suggest you approach this poem totally fresh when you read it to your kids. Struggle with the poem. Struggle alongside your kids. But keep going. You'll be teaching your kilos such an invaluable lesson about reading poetry.

Next we discussed our own reaction to the poem, and how much more we liked it the first time we read it. And then after we read it again, and again, and again, and again. It was so great to see their opinions changing with each read. We discussed the way other people responded to Cumming's wild looking poetry when he wrote it. I told them that in the next few days they'd get to illustrate "The Sky Was" in the way they saw it in their heads and they were quite excited about that.

Day 3: I read "The Sky Was" again to get it thoroughly in our heads. Each child looked at the poem as it was originally written by e e. (you can provide copies for them or just use the book and hold it up for them to see.) Next I shared with them one of my favorite quotes about poetry by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "Poetry: the best words in the best order." What does this quote mean? Here's how I explained it to the kids: "Its so important to understand that poets choose every word in there poems with the utmost care. They don't have pages and pages to express an idea, paint a picture, or tell a story. Instead they must do that in a few lines. Therefore every word counts. This is called word choice, or diction." (further reading on diction and word choice here)

Next I had the kids underline or circle word choices cumming's made in the poem that they thought were important. They could do this individually on there own copies of the poem, or you could do it all together as a group on the white board. Everyone shares one of their choices and why they think it is important to the meaning of the poem.

Then I wrote the poem in a more traditional style up on our white board. I underlined each word connected to a color: spry, shy and cool. We lined up our colored pencils and I asked them," what kind of yellow do you see when you hear it described as "shy"?" They immediately chose the lightest yellow in the bunch. We did the same for the other colors. We also talked about the word "luminous" and "spouting". "What other words could the poet have picked and why did he chose those particular words? How do they affect the image the poem makes in your head?"

Lastly we discussed the image this poem created in our minds. What did we see? Each one of us saw something different. Some of us saw a whimsical picture with cotton candy clouds and lemons floating in the sky. Others saw a train speeding through cool green hills, with a glowing yellow and pink sunset and dark brown shadows on the ground. It was so much fun to hear everyone's different reaction to the same words.

Day 4: Kids copy "The Sky Was" into their literature journals. ( I use these simple notebooks by Moleskine for almost all my kids subjects. After years of trying to find the best way to keep their work in one place and organized, these have been the best idea. I like their simplicity and how easily they store. My kids have no issue with adding illustrations on the lined pages, but if yours do, that would be a drawback)

Recalling our discussion from the previous day, the kids illustrate "The Sky Was" in their literature journals. I read aloud several other e e cummings poems to them while they drew. You can choose from any of these listed here: "In Just" "Who Are You, Little I" "O Round Moon" "I Carry You In My Heart"

We talk about the new poems a bit while they draw, but don't go into any detailed lessons. We're just enjoying the poems and what they bring to mind.

Day 5 and beyond: For the rest of the poetry study we will continue to read ee cumming's poems--the five I've mentioned above and perhaps a few others. Beyond the ones I have listed above, you'll have to preview his poems before you read them to your kiddos. ee was famous for writing some erotic love poetry, as well as plenty more traditional love poems, and poems about nature and childhood. Even if you only focus on these 5 poems and read them a couple of times over the course of the month, it will give your children such a great connection to the poetry of ee cummings.

Some additional activities I'll do with my kids for this poetry study:*Memorize a poem--my kids have chosen "who are you, little i" *Look for examples of imagery, simile and metaphor, hyperbole, and personification in cumming's poems. You can brush up on other literary devices here, This activity can easily be done with the poems I have listed. Because cumming's poems were so avant-garde, it can be hard to find traditional literary devices in his poems outside of word choice. Explain that to your kids and make looking for the other literary devices like a treasure hunt. They'll be excited hen they find an example. *"Read A Poke In the I" book to explore more poems that play with whimsical poetic format. *Encourage kids to create a poem of their own in this model. *Discuss other poets and writers who have played with language and grammar like ee cummings did. Two great examples are Lewis Carol and James Joyce. We will read Lewis Carrol's  "Jabberwocky" and then we'll read the first few lines of James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake". *Read poems by Shel Silverstein, focusing specifically on poems he wrote that combined words and pictures to create a non traditional poetic form. If you don't have Silverstein's books, you can do a google image search for these poems and print them up for your kiddos. "A Closet Full of Shoes" "A Light in the Attic" and "Here I Go Down Circle Road" *Read these poems by cumming's friends and contemporaries William Carols Williams, Robert Frost, and Ezra Pound.*Look at art by Paul Cezanne and Matisse, two artists that inspired e e cummings by their unique way of seeing and creating art. *If there is time, take a museum trip and see works by either of these artists in real life. *Listen to music by Igor Stravinsky a composer who influenced cummings with his revolutionary style of music. *Spend some time learning about WWI as e e cummings spent time in France as an ambulance driver in WWI and it had a tremendous impact on his life. *Explore a bit of the poetry produced by the WWI poets. These poems are hard because they are about war. But a few of them would be such a valuable way to help my kids better understand this part of e e's life. These are the ones we will read. "In Flanders Field"  "War Girls" "Everyone Sang" (and these poets are sure to be a poetry study later on when my kids are a bit older.) *Create a final art piece of a favorite e e cummings poem, hand lettered and/or illustrated.

Final thoughts:  I plan to do this poetry study over the course of a month, but you could spend as much or as little time with it as you like. The activities I have listed for the first 4 days could certainly be divided up into smaller chunks, but I liked starting with a good dose of the poet and his works, to get the kids more invested before we branched off into studying all the other things connected to the poet. The additional activities are ones you can do as you see fit. Some might not appeal to your kids. Or you. In fact, you could just spend a week with e e cummings and do only that first activity I have described -- read the book, learn about word choice, and illustrate the poem. What I hope you'll take away from this is that teaching your kids poetry does not have to be scary, difficult or boring. I want to help you make it interesting and fun! Whether you choose to go big or small with this, I hope you''ll find at least some of this stuff useful! Because I sure had fun writing it all down for you.

If you want to read a little more of my thoughts on teaching poetry, I have some more Poetry 101 blog posts for you! You'll want to start here, where I talk about why teaching poetry matters. And next, read about how to discuss a poem with your kids.

All my love from your favorite word nerd, Greta