Adventure in Kids Books?

Ann Giles asks in The Guardian today, "Whatever happened to the classic, rip-roaring adventure books I read as a child?"

Granted, these books were old even in the 1960s, but we read them because there wasn't the profusion of children's books that there is today. I lived and breathed The Three Musketeers and The Scarlet Pimpernel, as well as anything by Jules Verne - of whom there appears to have been more translations into Swedish (my childhood reading language) than into English. I devoured Scott and Stevenson, albeit mainly in abridged versions. When did children stop reading the classic adventure stories?

Giles mentions some current books that now fill the adventure gap, including one of my favorite's, The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Golding. I bought mine as a Christmas gift to self in 2006 from Amazon UK. You still can't get it in the US, even though it was on the shortlist for last year's Costa prize. Several books follow Cat Royal as she continues her adventures.

My other new favorite in the adventure series form is Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship's Boy. Mary Faber is an orphan who lives a life of begging and petty crime on the streets of London. After her gang's leader is killed, she strips his clothing, cuts her hair, renames herself Jack and takes to the high seas. This is a rip-roaring good book. The ones that follow are just as much fun.

Free Stories and Poems at Lit2Go

I found Lit2Go today while searching iTunes for some Jane Austen. Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in MP3 (audiobook) format. You can visit the web site and browse by author or title or search the database. You can also go directly to iTunes and download from the audiobook library.

Files are available for grades K-12. You will also find a few selections in Spanish. At the primary level you will find nursery rhymes and poems. In upper elementary grades you will find Alice in Wonderland (5th), The Secret Garden (4th), plus fables and fairy tales. At the high school level you will find many of the "traditional" classics, as well as some odd titles, such as Deductive Logic, The History of Modern Mathematics and Spherical Trigonometry. Phew! I love math, but I'd need to see it when I read it. The narrators are, for the most part, pleasant and easy to listen to, though a few read a bit quickly. I listened to the beginning of Beowulf, but had a hard time following without the text in front of me.

I can see great promise for some of these files in the classroom. For example, the page for A Was An Apple Pie has links to the MP3 file, a downloadable PDF of the text, and a list of the related Sunshine State Standards. Even though these are FL curriculum standards, they do map pretty closely to the language arts/English standards in most states.

I will point out one major problem I noted in looking at the grade level audio files. In this day and age, how could developers think it was appropriate to provide resources for the nursery rhyme Ten Little Indians? Perhaps I'm naive, but I'd like to believe that teachers know better than to use this degrading piece in their classrooms. Given the fact that these materials are available on the web and likely to be used by teachers all over the country (world?), I would like to see more attention given to the inclusion of materials appropriate for ALL children, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, etc. This means the exclusion of time-honored favorites that do nothing more than perpetuate unacceptable stereotypes.

Okay, I've shared my thoughts. Take a look at these new resources and let me know what you think.

What Shall I Read? - Audio Books, Please!

Monica over at educating alice left a comment on my last post in which she said "I'd go for Austen myself (or how about Dickens? I'm having a wonderful time listening to them. Just finished Nicholas Nickleby --- fantastic yet again!) ."

Listening. Hmmmmmm. This option never even crossed my mind. While I have been updating my iPod and making music choices, I haven't thought a whit about audio books. I noticed that in the comments section of Kelly's recent post entitled Books That Make Me Ask: "Am I Alone Here?", several folks responded that they found their experience with the audio version of The Book Thief to be very different (and generally more positive) from the written word. The only book I have ever read by listening was Dennis LeHane's Mystic River, and this was only because I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. I was moved by the narration, the prose, and word choice. Listening to it while on a 10 hour drive to Buffalo and again back to Richmond made the time fly, though it did little in the way of improving my driving skills. In the end, I did not see the movie, not wanting to ruin the experience of listening to this amazing story.

So, this is a long-winded introduction to the question of what to include in my listening library. Since I have no real experience with audio books, what do you recommend? What stories have you listened too and been moved by or just simply found pure enjoyment in?