Maintaining Sanity on the Road Trip: Slow Down and Listen

Ready to take that end-of-the-summer road trip but worried about how your kids will fare in the back seat?  

Translation: do you fear the bickering and yelling?  Do your kids get car sick watching DVDs?  Mine do.  And they fight in the back seat.  A LOT!  This was a painful situation for me: I like road trips, but I don’t like my kids on road trips.  How to fuse the two?

A little over a year ago, we were on a road trip and I wanted everybody to listen to audiobooks: they improve your vocabulary, they broaden your world!  I downloaded an iPhone app that had the entire Librivox.org catalog in it for a mere 99 cents.  That’s over 30,000 books!  Problem was, many of the narrators were unbearable.  I also found out: thirty thousand books is overkill.  Too much choice creates paralysis.

And that’s when it hit me:  I would create my own iPhone app with only the children’s catalog from Librivox.  And only with the best narrators.  No matter how good a book is, if the narrator is no good, it’s impossible to enjoy.

I engaged Mazal Simantov – a good friend and excellent designer, programmer and lifelong children’s advocate.  Together we created Audiobooks For Your Kids.  Thirty of the best narrated titles from the children’s catalog of Librivox.org.  Now, you don’t have to spend the time figuring out which book to listen to: you can search by title, age, genre and author.  Best of all, the app is only 99 cents.  We also made sure that the design was beautiful, spare and easy to use -- and we’ve done the legwork for you by curating the app!

Here’s what you get when your kids read on the road: they don’t wander away, they don’t fight, they are safe.  They are quiet. 

There are no bells and whistles to this app: it’s old school, if apps can be called such things.  You don’t read along, there are no graphics, no animations.  You just listen.  Slow down and listen.  There’s a lot of noise out there, online, and most of it is no good for us.  You can listen in the car, at home, in the doctor’s waiting room.  We even explain how to do it on our website.  Easy peasy.

Over the next few months, we’ll release three new apps with 30 titles in each of the following categories: Science Fiction, Fantasy and Fairy Tales/Folk Tales.  Stay tuned.
Raise your kids as readers.  Audiobooks is too reading!  Enjoy the summer.  Drive safely!

The first five people to retweet this blog post will be sent a free copy of the iPhone app, Audiobooks For Your Kids.  Be sure to send your email to feedback AT audiobooksforyourkids DOT com so that we can send you the code.

Elizabeth Rodgers is an avid traveler, award-winning filmmaker and Los Angeles native who now lives in Boise, Idaho with her lovely family. She’s the co-creator of the Audiobooks for Kids iPhone app and contributes regularly to TravelingMom.com as the Idaho TravelingMom. Follow her on Twitter at erodg.