School is out! Summer vacation starts! As a child growing up in a family of five, I often took road trips with my family whenever we traveled on vacation. I remember sitting snugly between my sisters in the backseat for hours and hours. I also remember having to choose which of my favorite books to pack along for the long car drive.
With technology making everything smaller and more portable, electronic devices like smartphones and tablets have enabled our children to have movies at their fingertips whenever and wherever they want to be entertained… a personalized TV that travels out of the home! I admit that these devices do make traveling in the car much easier, but I would like to encourage a time limit be set for watching movies or playing games.
Whenever my family takes a road trip, I make an effort to find audiobooks that are age-appropriate and appealing to my boys. Listening to an audiobook together in the car is definitely a family event. My personal rule is no other electronic devices and no earbuds during our audiobook time. The benefits of audiobooks are to encourage listening skills, to increase vocabulary, and to promote imagination. Another benefit to a good audiobook is that our boys don’t ask for unnecessary pit stops- because they don’t want to have the story interrupted.
My favorite place to find audiobooks is the local library. The library usually has a huge selection, and the audiobooks are free to borrow. On our last family road trip, we had been listening to The Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer. The story was entertaining for our entire family, which ranged in ages from 6 to 53 years of age! The next book in the series is to be available this summer; but unfortunately, not in time for our family trip!
So, I am in search of new audiobooks this summer. If you have found a great audiobook in the past, I would love to hear about it. When you share the information on our West Plano Pediatrics Facebook page, please include the title, author, and audience age. I look forward to trying some of your recommended audiobooks!