For Your Listening Pleasure

We've been enjoying two audio books around our house these past few weeks.

The first is the James Herriot Treasury for Children, as read by Jim Dale of Harry Potter audio book fame. The James Herriot treasury is truly beloved by our family...we read it at least annually, and I tend to bring it out in the autumn.

I was delighted to find this delightful audio version at the library, and the sweet girl enjoyed it at rest time for two weeks running. Dale does a very fine job of reading Herriot's tender Yorkshire tales about cows, sheep, horses, dogs and cats. And isn't it fitting that a man with the last name of Dale would read stories that made the Yorkshire dales so beloved to so many readers?

The other audio book is one that my husband and I have been enjoying during our occasional lunchtimes together. It's The Book of Three, the first book in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. I just finished reading the whole five-book series a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed them so much I told D. that I hoped I could read them aloud to him (a common practice around here). But the more I contemplated reading them aloud, the more I wished that I could hear someone else pronounce some of the Welsh names first!

So I went looking for an audio version of the first book in the series, and now that we've started, I wonder if we won't just keeping going this way. That's because I'm completely in love with narrator James Langton's interpretation of these characters. I confess I'm not always a huge audio book fan, often because I think the reader doesn't do the work justice (or read it the way I've been hearing it in my head, or the way I would read it aloud...I love to read aloud!) but Langton's narration is amazing. He's created incredibly distinctive voices for each of the characters, most of which feel "just right." I'm especially impressed with his reading of Eilonwy (and yes, I can say her name correctly now!) and of Fflewddur Fflam, the courageous and funny bard with the truth-telling harp.

Listening to The Book of Three after finishing the whole series has also been a pleasure because I'm realizing anew what an excellent job Alexander did of setting up so many of the important events and moments in the series right here at the start. So much of The High King, the fifth and final book, rings more powerfully when you go full-circle back to the beginning. I'm also realizing anew just how funny the books are. Langton's reading makes the humorous parts, even the small and subtle ones, shine through. I highly recommend this audio version, but I hope that you can find it at the library as it appears to be out of print. (I just noted that the only copy available on Amazon is selling for over $100!)