Audio Books

Times have been a little tight the last few years and we try and save money any way we can. I can pass up the coffees, the fast food, the shoes, and new clothes. What I have a hard time passing by is books. I absolutely love books. I love bookstores. I love reading books. I love buying books. My husband shares my book passion so much that on our honeymoon, we stopped by every bookstore we passed that week.

I want to pass this passion for books and reading onto our children. When I was a child, I loved pulling out my little blue record player off the shelf of our spare bedroom and opening up my storybook record sets. I listened to them for hours. As I browsed our local bookstore, I fondly remembered those times and set out to find the audio book sets. The lowest audio book set price I found was $9.99. With three children, that is impossible. That's when I discovered it was more economical to purchase mp3 players on sale (they don't need high GB storage for their audio books and those run pretty cheap these dates--- especially on sale days) and record my own mp3 files and create my own audio books. I know mp3 players are old-school, but I love them because they don't have all the razzle-dazzle of tablets with screens, etc. so I don't have to limit the use the of mp3 players as much as their tablet time. 

I download some files from our library website. We have a link on ours called READS. You enter your library card number and can download the audio books for a "checkout" period. This is usually a couple of weeks. Check your local library and see if you have this option. It usually has you to download a software audio player to your mp3 and you can listen to the audio books for 2 weeks. Make sure your mp3 is compatible. Some mp3s only take certain formats.

I have also recorded some of my children's books onto their mp3 players. They love it when I do this. In fact, my daughter, who has a bit of separation anxiety, was pleasantly surprised when I read an entire Junie B. Jones book and recorded it on her mp3 for her sleepover at Grandma's. I read to them every night, so this gave her a bit of normalcy to take with her.

There are also many websites that offer audio books for free. Here is a short list of just a few: 

• StoryNory: Variety of story types for kids including classics such as Rumplestiltskin, Three Little Pigs, stories from around the world, and original stories.

• LibriVox : Searchable database of children's classic tales - contains mp3 files and ebook downloads.
  Titles include works such as Alice in Wonderland, My Life and Work by Henry Ford, Aesop's Fables,
  Little Women, Real Mother Goose,  Wizard of Oz, Frog Prince, and more
• Robert Munsch: Listen to Robert Munsch narrate book selections such as Love You Forever,Class Clown, and Up, Up, Down.

Finding these resources has really saved us a lot of money over the past few years, and will save us even more in the years to come!