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One--or More--for the Road

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Now that we are well into the summer, and the American family vacation tour in the family car is rolling on its way, parents (and children) may find a new use for their cassette decks: keeping parents and children content during the daily trek. It may just be possible that through its use, the inevitable query--”How long before we get there?”--coming from the back seat, and the command from the front seat--”Stop picking on your sister (or brother) right now!”--may become part of an outmoded and unregretted past. Given the right choice, peace may prevail between the essential stops, and even if the choice isn’t to everyone’s taste, the cassette can take the blame.

I’m willing to hazard that Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” would make a good starter for everyone except specialists in children’s literature who do not believe that animals talk. The only snag is that one has to make a choice between Recorded Books’ set of the two volumes--the first read by that queen of narrators, Flo Gibson, and the second by an equally professional Patrick Tull; Books on Tape’s set, read by a trio--Cindy Hardin, Walter Zimmerman and Walter Covell--and classic Books on Cassettes’ offering that features Flo Gibson for both volumes. Listeners have different tastes, and here the decision to be made lies between listening to a consistent voice or a more personalized dramatic interpretation of the text.

I claim no originality in suggesting this sort of entertainment. Indeed, if one wants to pick up historical facts, local lore and amusing trivia, the “RIDE WITH ME” series offers information on 16 states and individual areas, keyed to interstate tours. Most of them lie east of the Mississippi and they are for sale only, but at the modest price of $9.95 each. So if you are showing your offspring their roots in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, you can learn a lot from a single 90-minute tape. All of the narrators are excellent, but Texas West (180 minutes) is the farthest reach in this direction. Though it may sound subversive, this is also an easy way of traveling while enjoying the comfort of one’s favorite chair.

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When it comes to children’s books, Classic Books on Cassettes issues a rich selection of more than 60 titles, most of them narrated by Flo Gibson, running alphabetically from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” through “Daddy-Long-Legs” and “Dream Days” to Edith Nesbit’s “The Wouldbegoods,” which has been entertaining generation after generation of children and adults ever since its publication in 1901, as it follows the mixed fortunes of the Bastable family.

Books on Tape’s Classics and Family section lists a greater variety, ranging in content from Plato’s “Apology of Socrates,” “Crito” and Books I and II of “The Republic” to Anna Sewell’s “Black Beauty,” with an enormous variety of titles and authors in between. Representative of the range are a substantial Sherlock Holmes series, two Edgar Rice Burroughs titles (my personal favorite, “A Princess of Mars,” and “Tarzan of the Apes,” the first--and best?--of the two dozen Tarzan novels) and Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers.”

For sheer adventure and narrative pace, Books on Tape offers, under the general title “The Hornblower Saga,” C. S. Forester’s 11 tales that box the compass of that doughty English seaman’s career, narrated in a variety of American and British accents. A domestic counterpart, if that seems more desirable, would be Recorded Books’ “The Forsyte Saga,” all of which is narrated by Neil Hunt in a total of 31 hours’ listening, which should be almost enough to get you there and back.

But nothing is more reliable than a good mystery, or a series of mysteries built around a central character. Three of Michael Bond’s Monsieur Pamplemousse series can be rented or bought from Recorded Books, which also offers the first three titles in the Jimmy Flannery series: “The Junkyard Dog,” “The 600-pound Gorilla” and “Nibbled to Death by Ducks.” If you are concerned over exposing the young to the realistic language of the street (and playground?), you may want to give these a private hearing first. Or you may prefer Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax, a New Jersey widow “of a certain age” who remains genteel under the most exotic and trying circumstances in six adventures that include “The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax,” “The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax” and “Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha.”

Ten of Leslie Charteris’ “Saint” novels are available through Books on Tape, starting with the first, “The Saint Meets the Tiger,” and offering a variety of this season’s new recordings, among them “The Saint’s Getaway” and “The Saint vs. Scotland Yard.” Equally well represented is Eric Ambler, with this season’s addition, “Waiting for Orders,” a collection of short stories. Six of Dorothy Sayers’ classics centered on Lord Peter Wimsey, effectively read by Ian Carmichael, are available from G. K. Hall & Co., including “Lord Peter Views the Body” and “Murder Must Advertise.” Hall also issues a full dozen of Agatha Christie’s tantalizers, including such favorites as “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Ten Little Indians.”

If you are spending your vacation in the West generally or the Southwest specifically, the Audio Press offers a number of attractive titles related to both regions. Ivan Doig reads his own “This House of Sky,” a moving account of his boyhood in Montana. In “The Solace of Open Spaces and Other Essays,” Gretel Ehrlich comments on life in Wyoming. In Peggy Pond Church’s story of Edith Warner’s life, “The House at Otowi Bridge,” the traditional world of the pueblo is set against the beginning of the atomic age at Los Alamos.

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So drive safely, keep your eye on the road and your ear alert to your favorite writers.

WHERE TO ORDER CASSETTES:

Books on Tape: P.O. Box 7900, Newport Beach, CA 92658 (800) 626-3333. Purchase or rental.

Recorded Books: 270 Skipjack Road, Prince Frederick, MD 20678 (800) 638-1304. Purchase or rental.

Classic Books on Cassettes: P.O. Box 40115, Washington, D.C. 20016-0115 (202) 363-3429. “Ride With Me” Series, purchase only; other titles purchase or rental.

G.K. Hall Audio Publishers: 70 Lincoln St., Boston, MA 02111 (800) 343-22806. Purchase only.

The Audio Press: P.O. Box 666, Niwot, CO 80544 (303) 652-2921 or (303) 652-3035. Purchase only.

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