Reading isn't just sitting down and having a book in front of you. Readers can access more books by listening to audio books, it's a shame more people don't. If you're one of those who doesn't I plan to convince you to start today! Below are 20 reasons why you should listen to books:
Learning:
Reading and listening are both great ways to learn, but audio books let readers engage with books differently than print.
If you’re a slow reader you should listen to audio books so you get books read faster and more of them.
Audio books may be a better way to read books because of the reader's voices. When I listen to audio books I comprehend it more when the narrator changes his or her inflections for the characters and doesn't just read but acts! A voice can reveal so much more context than merely print. Sarcasm for instance!
When you listen to audio books you know how to pronounce every word in them because the reader says them first. It's fun to compare American readers/books to British readers/books. (e.g. Ha-rass-ment vs Hara-ssment.)
For young kids especially, listening comprehension exceeds reading comprehension. Do we not crawl before we walk and talk before we read?
When you listen to audio books it helps with vocabulary. More words listened to in context, more words learned!
Portable:
Audio books are portable like regular books but in different ways so that you can get through more books.
Take them with you in the car! On road trips, during commutes to work, school, activities, and while running errands.
Audio books are also good to listen when you’re walking, running, taking the dog out, exercising and while at the gym.
Listen to audio books while painting rooms in your house, doing yard work, cleaning, doing laundry, organizing, etc.
I usually listen to audio books while doing chores, cleaning my room, etc. Think how many books you’d read if you listened to them when you do all that!
Listen while lounging, getting ready in the morning, getting ready for bed... I bet you can think of even more times to listen.
Advantages over Print:
Listening to audio books is fun because since the narrator is an actor it’s like going to a play or watching TV without a picture. I like listening to Jim Dale (Harry Potter) and Clea Lewis (Princess Diaries) and Nathaniel Parker (Artemis Fowl). I think they’re some of the best narrators I’ve heard yet.
You hear every little detail in audio book. Sometimes people might skip over a paragraph or a page and that could be a very important part. Listening to audio books makes you a better listener!
Audio books increases number of books kids, teens, and adults read. If you listened to two or more audio books a week, you’ll have at least 8 books read in a month. That's more than most people read in a year! Can you imagine?
MP3 players are “cool" where books might not be and therefore make reading cool too. You can download you’re book onto you’re iPod or MP3 player and listen to it whenever and wherever.
Audio books are greener than print books. You save trees when you choose audio books.
Ease of Use:
You can listen when you can't see. This is great for readers with poor eyesight or eyestrain.
Audio books are accessible; you can get them at the library, from Amazon, through Audible.
Cut TV time in half - or out completely with audio books. Trust me it's worth it! Books become best friends. Who ever heard of a TV show being a best friend?
You can listen to audio books at night on mp3 player without waking anybody else in the room! Lights out? No problem! Not like with a print book where you'd have to turn on a lamp.
There are so many devices for listening to audio books available. You can listen on an MP3 player, in the car on a CD player, a computer, a home sound system, on a Kindle, etc.
Like a good print book, audio books can be comfort reads and favorites that you listen to over and over and over again. So what are you waiting for?
Summary: Opal Koboi, an unconscious pixie and archenemy of the fairies is about to make her great escape. When she comes out of her self-induced coma, Opal will set her plans for revenge into action. Of course the best revenge plans are better when added with plans to rule the world and destroy the fairy people. One plan, perfectly executed, will change everything.
Why I Started This Book:
I’m on a roll – I want to know how this series develops and eventually ends.
Likes:
Nathaniel Parker keeps amazing me. I listen to him for hours. He’s fabulous as a reader. I plan on finding more books that he’s read and listening to them also.
Eoin Colfer is hilarious. He keeps making things up around dwarves and Mulch. Love his world; especially the lower elements.
Opal’s cloning and escape from her psychiatric ward. Can you steal your own identity?
How 14 year old Artemis Fowl ends up discovering Opal’s super awesome hidden ship of doom with a very low tech approach. Pretty dang cool if I do say so.
Finally, Opal’s poor misguided idea of becoming human and how it winds up backfiring on her. Tehe.
Dislikes:
The books are getting darker. This one was particularly gruesome with details on cracking ribs, breaking bones, groans of pain, stinky trolls, etc. Just because fairies heal easily doesn’t mean I want to hear about multiple broken bodies.
Root’s death. Sniff. Of course without it and Opal’s machinations the story would not have started.
Foaly was not as smart or as innovative as he has been in the previous books.
Lastly, I didn’t like how Artemis and Butler regained their memories. I thought the mirrored lenses would have provided something more than a barely there ability to lie under the fairy gaze.
Keira runs a book review blog for readers by readers on romance novels entitled Love Romance Passion. She’s been reading romance since she was in her teens and began blogging about romance so she could share her passion for her favorite genre. She loves reading paranormal, Regency, historical America, and highlander most of all and completely adores blind and wounded heroes.
Title: Boys are Dogs Author: Leslie Margolis Page Count: 195 Format: Hardback Grade Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Summary: Annabelle is going into 6th grade at her first coed (boys and girls) school. She and her mom move in with her mom's boyfriend (a.k.a. Dweeble), and because of the big move they get her a dog. The dog isn't trained and is a big problem, but not the only problem. The boys aren’t exactly as she imagined. In fact they're worse! Much, much, worse! Just like wild dogs. Now Annablles’ job is not only to train her new dog but to train all the boys at school.
Why I Started This Book:
I began this book because, it was on a list of books I had to read for school. I started this one first because it looked the most amusing and was the most appealing to me.
Likes:
I enjoyed reading the parts of this book when Annabelle was reading her dog training book and Leslie wrote what she was reading. I got to learn 10 times more information than if it wasn’t written.
I liked reading from Annabelle’s point of view, and getting to hear what she was thinking. She sounded like my idea of a 6th grader starting a new school. I could have been her friend.
I liked this book because Annabelle is in 6th grade, and so am I. So while I was reading I could relate to her problems as if they were my own. Well, maybe not all, as I've always been in coed schooling.
Dislikes:
I didn’t like the ending. Why you ask? Well it wasn’t exactly how I thought it would end, and I thought there was a better alternative.
Book Rating: I give this book 4 treasure cheats! It interested me the whole time I was reading. It was fun reading what someone else thinks about boys. I would like to read Leslie’s other book called "Girls Acting Catty."
Most kids need motivation to start let alone finish a book. I’m going to share tips with on how to set and reach reading goals. I hope they help you!
Required Reading for School: When you get a new book divide that book into how many days you have to read it in. Put sticky notes or index cards or bookmarks to mark those sections. Then read one section a day and read all the pages in that section. Pretty soon, before you know it, you’ve read the whole book. Congrats! Extra tip: be sure to start well before report is due! No stress that way.
Reading More Books: First, decide how many books you want read in a week or a month. Now refer to tip one and figure out how many days in the week/month you have for each book. Be sure to start and finish your books within the time frame you figured out so you can reach your goal. You can even use this idea for a yearly book reading goal!
Daily Reading: Set aside time in your day for reading. When this time comes, stop what you’re doing and read. I suggest setting aside an hour of reading time for when you first wake up or before going to bed. By reading every day you’re not going to forget anything about the book and have to start it over or backtrack and waste time.
Listening to Books: Audio books are a great nook and cranny way of fitting in more books. You can listen to them while cleaning your room, when riding around in a car, while exercising, and simply hanging out at home. However you can fit it in is great just make sure you’re doing something where you can listen and pay attention.
Nook and Cranny Reading: Read whenever you have a chance. Carry a book with you in your backpack, purse, bag, carrying case, whatever, just make sure you have one! There are so many places to read and many moments of time you can snatch for reading. For example:you can read in a car trip, when you are in line for something, before class starts and even before you go to bed.
Now that I have told you some of my tips for reading goals tell me yours. What do you do?
Summary: Bran Hambric is different from other boys and doesn’t even know the true extent of it. He was found as impossible as it might sound in a locked bank vault. Sewey Wilomas, the man who found him takes him home as he must under the Finders Keepers law. Eight years have passed and Bran still doesn’t know who his mother is or how he came to be in the city of Dunce’s third bank. All he has for a clue is a scrap of paper with his name on it directing him “To Clarence.”
Why I Started This Book:
I began this book for a number of reasons. The first is that I have been off and on watching Kaleb on youtube and twitter because of his Twilight involvement and he's just plain fun, his novel was sure to be too. Second, he’s approximately my age and wrote a fantasy story with a very interesting concept, how could I not support that by picking up the book? Third – who doesn’t crave a Harry Potter fix? Bran Hambric promised to be one and fulfilled it.
Note: While receiving this book early as a reader copy from the publisher, it is the final consumer version of the book.
Likes:
Bran Hambric is set in the city of Dunce, a place that outlawed mages and gnomes and all things etcetera. Who couldn’t like something as silly sounding as that? Plus it’s the perfect setup to include all three!
Sewey’s cursing: “Great Rot!” and “Great Moby!” Sewey is excellent for humor and spouting off the town’s ideology. He blames everything bad on gnomes.
Polland the gnome. He’s a good character. I hope to see more of him in future Bran Hambric novels.
The five kinds of magic: mental, physical, mortal, illusions, and natural.
Shambles. Guessed his importance right off the bat and then doubted it until I got to the ending of the story.
The bad guy #1 and in particular the Farfield curse. Very spooky.
The cover! It's gorgeous! The illustrator was obviously influenced by Harry Potter but it still reads as it's own universe. Love.
Dislikes:
The first 20-100 pages are really tough. Mainly because of the grammar issues that cropped up repeatedly. Most particularly the improper use of ‘and’ and ‘but’ in several long sentences. The author should have reversed the choice or gone with a smaller two letter transition word instead.
Another issue was the occasional switching mid sentences between characters. For instance – Shambles would do something then the second part would be about Joris' actions however the subjective personal pronouns would still be reflecting back on Shambles.
Mabel’s hypochondria. For some, I see this being humorous and fun, for me not so much. I was over it by the third time it was mentioned and she went crazy trying to ingest her body weight in them. Figuratively of course.
The #1 bad guy didn’t seem to understand how to convince Bran to join the dark side as it were. He had 'compelling' arguments but they weren’t really tailored to what Bran truly desired which the bad guy should have known having been in Bran’s head.
Last minute thoughts: There are quite a few parallels to Harry Potter. I will be listing some in bullet format below, so for those not wishing to be spoiled I expect you to click away immediately.
Harry and Bran are in the care of families who don’t acknowledge them and both take the place as a sort of house elf. Bran however is treated much better by the Wilomas family than Harry by the Dursley’s.
Harry and Bran were vessels for the bad guy’s soul.
Their mothers were instrumental in saving them once from the baddies.
The major bad guys, Voldemort and Baslyn, do what they can to control the magical world and to defy death. Baslyn’s main magical power is concentrated on mortal magics.
Shambles while more similar to Golem than Dobby is of equal importance to Bran Hambric as they were to their stories.
Keira runs a book review blog for readers by readers on romance novels entitled Love Romance Passion. She’s been reading romance since she was in her teens and began blogging about romance so she could share her passion for her favorite genre. She loves reading paranormal, Regency, historical America, and highlander most of all and completely adores blind and wounded heroes.
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