Books on Tape Keep Smiles Over the Miles

Audio

Perfect for family travel, the venerable Listening Library’s impressive selection of top children’s audiotapes--recorded in their entirety--can make the miles go faster. Among its 400-plus quality audiotapes are Newbery Award winners, popular series, classics by Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson, and works by favorites such as Judy Blume, Jack Prelutsky, Beverly Cleary. A sampling:

“Redwall.” Brian Jacques. J YA 940 CX. Eight cassettes, 10 hours. $64.98. All ages. Jacques’ acclaimed epic fantasy about heroic mice who battle Cluny the Scourge and his evil rat band to protect peaceful Redwall Abbey. A full production, performed by Jacques and a BBC cast.

“The Indian in the Cupboard.” Lynne Reid Banks. J YA 809 CX. Three cassettes. 262 minutes. $23.98. For grades 4 to 6. Banks offers a delightful reading of her widely praised book-turned-movie fantasy about a magical toy cupboard and a young boy’s adventures with a small plastic Indian figure that comes to life.

“Where the Red Fern Grows.” Wilson Rawls. J YA 868 CX. 397 minutes. Six cassettes. $37.98. For grades 5 and up. Anthony Heald’s performance draws listeners into time and place in his layered, Southern-accented reading of Rawls’ sensitive classic about a boy and his beloved hunting dogs.

“Fantastic Tales of Ray Bradbury.” J CXL 500 CX. Six cassettes. 277 minutes. $44.98. Ages 10 to adults. Bradbury reads such evocative tales as “The Illustrated Man,” “The Lake,” “Marionettes Inc.” and more.

Listening Library: (800) 243-4504.

Video

“The Great Numbers Game.” CTW/Sesame Street. Sony Wonder. 30 minutes. $12.98. Here are some of the all-time great counting animations, spanning “Sesame Street’s” 30 years. Using a wide variety of animation styles, including collage and stop-action with puppets, toys and clay, these cartoons and their musical accompaniment are wildly imaginative and fun. The only downside is that the cartoons are interwoven with some not-so-imaginative Muppet action--Elmo and Tully in a computer-game setting, looking for the “hidden” numbers. The upside is that the cartoons dominate. Also available in similar format: “The Alphabet Jungle Game.”