The kids have had a good time listening to these clever stories first published 100 years ago. They're on my list of classics-I-should-probably-have-read-but-didn't. Now I can enjoy them with my kids.
The kids can appreciate them on their own level. They love hearing about the outrageous antics of the characters as well as the crazy explanations for how things came to be (how the camel got his hump, why cats will always be enemies of dogs and men and why they prefer to be alone...).
I can appreciate them on a different level. I find myself laughing out loud at Kipling's clever use of words. How can a story go wrong when the father's name is 'Man-who-does-not-put-his-foot-forward-in-a-hurry', the mother's name is 'Lady-who-asks-a-very-many-questions', and the daughter's name is 'Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked'?
But I wonder what kind of looks we'd get from the kids if dh and I started calling each other 'my Lady and Delight of my Life' or 'my Lord and Treasure of my Soul' (as in the "Butterfly That Stamped"). Those would surely provoke eye-rolls.
When do your kids listen to audiobooks? I'd like to start this, but I don't know when a good time would be.
ReplyDeleteOur boys share a room so they listen at bedtime. We listen to the same one several times because sometimes one falls asleep and misses it, hopefully they hear the whole thing eventually. I bought a few CDs this year for this purpose. Recently I got an MP3 player and have just begun downloading audiobooks for free.
ReplyDeleteI read these stories to the children in my classroom and they loved them. I think this is a perfect kind of humor for children who always seem to love stupid jokes and that kind of humor.