Tales from the Seabury Library

Books on "tape"

Sometimes it seems that no matter where you live, it takes half an hour to get to Seabury. That's how long it takes me, and how long it took us when my children were students here. I've never minded the drive, though. For one thing, it's pretty. I come from North Tacoma and there's Mount Rainier, port activity, the water and the Olympics to look at.

For another, there are lots of interesting things to listen to.

When my kids were in the car with me, we always had a book on tape going. It was tapes at first; then CDs. (Now I have an iPod connection, too.)

We listened to so many wonderful stories. Books by Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl, Lloyd Alexander, Edward Eager ("Half Magic" is a terrific, not-very-scary fantasy that works well for young primary children) and more. The last book that the two boys and I listened to together driving to Seabury was "To Kill a Mockingbird." (Halley was in high school by then.) They loved it.

I had ulterior motives besides just passing the time. Halley, my oldest, and Noah, my youngest, were voracious readers of fiction. Ben, the middle kid, was a good reader, too, but he was more interested in nonfiction. Being such a booklover myself, there are certain books that I feel that no kid should miss. This way I could sneakily slip them into Ben's childhood. He never read "A Wrinkle in Time" or "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil T. Frankweiler," but he heard them.

Books on CD are usually more expensive than books on paper, but just like traditional books, you don't have to buy them. Libraries have excellent selections. You can go online with your library card and reserve several at once. And popular titles sometimes have less of a wait than regular books.

For example: I just checked King County Library's site. The book version of "The Lightning Thief," the first title in Rick Riordan's terrific Percy Jackson series has 136 holds on 76 copies. The CD version has 13 holds on 20 copies. You could listen to it before the movie comes out on Valentine's Day weekend!

Talk to you soon,