“Winnie the Pooh” audiobook
My family recently finished listening to all Harry Potter books on CD, the English editions narrated by the wonderful Stephen Fry. Over the summer, we started doing jigsaw puzzles while we listened, and I fell in love with these activities together. Alas, the Potter books come to an end. So when I searched for more things narrated by Fry, I found a full-cast dramatization on CD at the library of the stories from Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, with Stephen Fry as Pooh, Judi Dench as the narrator and Kanga, and Jane Horrocks (Ginger’s voice in Chicken Run) as Piglet.
Please, pause just a minute and imagine having Stephen Fry and Judi Dench reading to you? Something about having these two great actors reading me one of the most beloved books of childhood had me amazed with wonder at our modern world, where I could get this for free from my library.
Alas, my two boys, 7 and 10, were not as enthralled and repeatedly said they were not interested, after starting it a few times. But I persevered. (Because I can be stubborn like that.) I renewed it at the library, and kept playing it when they were round, and finally, FINALLY, I got the younger one to listen with me while I did the mending last week. Granted, he didn’t laugh as much as I did, but he was paying attention, and we got to share jokes, like the Tiddley Poms, and I got to listen to how to play Pooh Sticks with him. The older one was watching football with his dad. And so it goes. But I did finally listen to this, and can highly recommend it, and perhaps advise you that someone older than 6 mild feel they’re too old for it, but at some point before 45 year I became no longer too old for it.
As for our next audio book that I’m hoping to lure them back to the jigsaw with? A Dr. Who dramatization read by David Tennant. I think that’ll be more exciting than Pooh. To them, at least.
September 21st, 2013 at 11:09 am
I can’t believe I’ve never read any of the Pooh books. Thanks for this nice review of the audio versions.
September 22nd, 2013 at 4:13 pm
Also great audio books are the Percy Jackson books and the two Nick of Time books by Ted Bell. We love them all … Percy is better in the audio version than the movie version.
September 22nd, 2013 at 6:35 pm
Patricia, I was thinking of doing the Percy books with the kids. We tried Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors today. Didn’t go so well.