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Re: Great Audio Books for Teens
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From: Christine Taylor-Butler <kansascitymom_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 13:39:19 -0500
I often recommend Dark Materials Trilogy as an audiobook. It takes a rather long and complicated story and creates something accessible for teen readers (and adults). I found, when it was first released, quite a few gifted students reading the book so I pointed it out to urban parents. It's written with a post-high school vocabulary which is internalized. And frankly, if the pattern continues with similar audio selection may actually help students - especially urban students - boost their English scores on college entrance exams.
The advantage of this particular audio is that it's read by a full cast - like a stage play. My husband got in on the act and became hooked on the series.
I find some books are ruined by the wrong narrator. I felt that way with Hunger Games. The frequent instances of the narrator reading "I say" drove me nuts and got in the way of story as did the careful monotone cadence. Where other audio narrators often modulate their voices so you know who is talking and can eliminate many of the dialogue tags. I did find in my own household that introduction of some series by audio (in the car, for instance) cut down on TV viewing and sent my children scrambling to find the physical book for future releases.
I didn't know if this was posted, I'm behind on reading the ccbc thread, but some YA books are available for download (for free) this summer through audio sync. One contemporary and one classic novel each week, with the "new" week starting each Thursday. It requires the Overdrive engine to download but afterwards, the mp3's are transferable to an iPod or other device.
http://www.audiobooksync.com/
One note - don't click on the audio-graph, that results only in a preview. Click on the blue "download here" sentence above that, or in the left hand column to go to the page where the current titles are stored. If you can't find it, the page, which is refreshed each week, is here:
So far I'm getting good feedback from students who downloaded Maggie Stievater's Raven Boys last week and have bookmarked the site for more titles………….Christine
Received on Thu 20 Jun 2013 01:39:19 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2013 13:39:19 -0500
I often recommend Dark Materials Trilogy as an audiobook. It takes a rather long and complicated story and creates something accessible for teen readers (and adults). I found, when it was first released, quite a few gifted students reading the book so I pointed it out to urban parents. It's written with a post-high school vocabulary which is internalized. And frankly, if the pattern continues with similar audio selection may actually help students - especially urban students - boost their English scores on college entrance exams.
The advantage of this particular audio is that it's read by a full cast - like a stage play. My husband got in on the act and became hooked on the series.
I find some books are ruined by the wrong narrator. I felt that way with Hunger Games. The frequent instances of the narrator reading "I say" drove me nuts and got in the way of story as did the careful monotone cadence. Where other audio narrators often modulate their voices so you know who is talking and can eliminate many of the dialogue tags. I did find in my own household that introduction of some series by audio (in the car, for instance) cut down on TV viewing and sent my children scrambling to find the physical book for future releases.
I didn't know if this was posted, I'm behind on reading the ccbc thread, but some YA books are available for download (for free) this summer through audio sync. One contemporary and one classic novel each week, with the "new" week starting each Thursday. It requires the Overdrive engine to download but afterwards, the mp3's are transferable to an iPod or other device.
http://www.audiobooksync.com/
One note - don't click on the audio-graph, that results only in a preview. Click on the blue "download here" sentence above that, or in the left hand column to go to the page where the current titles are stored. If you can't find it, the page, which is refreshed each week, is here:
So far I'm getting good feedback from students who downloaded Maggie Stievater's Raven Boys last week and have bookmarked the site for more titles………….Christine
Received on Thu 20 Jun 2013 01:39:19 PM CDT
