Taking a family road trip this summer?

One of the best ways to pass the time while you are cruisin’ down the road is to listen to an audio book and The Urbana Free Library has  lots of them! Our audio books range from picture books with a CD to longer chapter books that contain 12 discs (for those vvvery long trips).  We have classic and new books, Rebecca Caudill and Blue Stem award books, Newbery award books too – all on CD.  All stories are read by actors who do a great job bringing these tales to life.  We also have non-fiction books to satisfy that history buff or young scientist.

Try these:

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin, read by Janet Song

Minli, an adventurous girl from a poor village, buys a magical goldfish, and then joins a dragon that can’t fly on a quest to find the Old Man of the Moon in hopes of bringing life to Fruitless Mountain and freshness to Jade River.

Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer Holmes, read by Becca Battoe

In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in far away Key West, Florida. 

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George, read by Christina Moore

While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on a the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.

I have many fond memories of listening to books on trips with my daughters.  We still talk about the James Herriot's books we loved and how we heard all about his adventures as a country veterinarian.  Once on our way to Savannah we listened to the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and we felt like we knew the city before we even arrived. Try turning off the music and listen to a book for a change of pace on your road trip - and let me know how you like it.  Audio books are sure to turn “are we there yet?” into “we are there already?”   Lora F.