kayray.org

Thank you all so much for the kindhearted comments and emails. It means a lot.

I’m feeling a better now. I mean, my situation is still exactly the same but I’m managing to think about other things and the terrible terrible depression has lifted again and I am ok for now.

I’ve been working on a LibriVox recording of a US History book for kids — This Country of Ours. It has 99 chapters and is divided into 7 parts. I started recording it in 2007 and got the first 6 parts done within three years, but I started the 7th part in 2013 and it’s just been sitting there unfinished for ages.

LibriVox is doing a finish-up-lingering-projects drive in June, so I decided to get it done. Right now I have only 8 chapters remaining, so the end is in sight!

You can find the recordings here:
This Country of Ours: All Seven Volumes

In non-audiobook news, my cousin Chloe and I saw the new Pixar movie, “Inside Out” yesterday and it was so good! Chloe is one of my favorite people in the whole world and I love to spend time with her, plus the movie was excellent — beautiful and funny and sad and lovely. So that was really fun.

Betsy-Tacy: the first book in the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. The series is based on the author’s life; her family and friends have been renamed, but they really were just like the the people in the books! The first book starts in 1897, when Betsy and Tacy meet, just before Betsy’s fifth birthday. (The series grows with the characters, so please don’t be put off by the relative simplicity of this first book.) You can find out more at the Betsy-Tacy Society: http://www.betsy-tacysociety.org/betsy-tacybooks

I’m going to post the whole book here all at once; the chapters will be in my podcast feed three times a week, as usual, but I don’t feel like scheduling individual posts here to match.

Betsy-Tacy: 01 Betsy Meets Tacy
Betsy-Tacy: 02 Betsy’s Birthday Party
Betsy-Tacy: 03 Supper on the Hill
Betsy-Tacy: 04 The Piano Box
Betsy-Tacy: 05 The First Day of School
Betsy-Tacy: 06 The Milkman Story
Betsy-Tacy: 07 Playing Paper Dolls
Betsy-Tacy: 08 Easter Eggs
Betsy-Tacy: 09 The Sand Store
Betsy-Tacy: 10 Calling on Mrs. Benson
Betsy-Tacy: 11 The Buggy Shed
Betsy-Tacy: 12 Margaret
Betsy-Tacy: 13 Mrs. Muller Comes to Call
Betsy-Tacy: 14 Tib

Chapter 21 (the last chapter)

The Trumpet of the Swan: 21 The Greening Spring

Chapter Twenty:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 20 Billings

Chapter Nineteen:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 19 A Talk about Money

Chapter Eighteen:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 18 Freedom

Chapter Seventeen:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 17 Serena

Chapter Sixteen:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 16 Philadelphia

Chapter fifteen:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 15 A Night at the Ritz

Chapter Thirteen:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 14 Boston

Feeling sort of ok today so I just recorded the last four chapters of The Trumpet of the Swan. I’ll still be posting individual chapters here on MWF (and in my podcast feed) or you can get the whole thing all at once here:
http://kayray.org/kayray-reads/ or from its home on archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/kayrayreadstoyou5

Such a wonderful book. I loved it when I was seven and I love it now. Nature, music, family, friendship, love, springtime. It was really fun singing Louis’s trumpet music for you! His own composition, “Oh Ever in the Greening Spring”, was written out in music notation in the text, so that was easy, but I had to go to youtube to learn the tunes for a couple of songs I wasn’t familiar with — “They Say It’s Wonderful” and “It’s Delightful to be Married”, for example.

Now, what’s next? I’ve been considering the Betsy-Tacy series, or the Little House series, or the Mary Poppins series, or, because E.B. White is an absolute joy to read aloud, I might do Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little before starting a more ambitious series.

Also I have an enormous history book (This Country of Ours) on librivox which I should finish up before I do anything else… I haven’t finished a librivox solo in ages. Argh! My particular combination of physical and mental ill health is really difficult to deal with.

Chapter Thirteen:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 13 End of Summer

Chapter Twelve:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 12 A Rescue

Chapter Eleven:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 11 Camp Kookooskoos

Chapter Ten:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 10 Money Trouble

I’ve been recording a few chapters of Music Talks with Children by Thomas Tapper, a group project at librivox. It’s lovely. From the Preface:

The purpose is to suggest a few of the many aspects which music may have even to the mind of a child. If these chapters, or whatever may be logically suggested by them, be actually used as the basis of simple Talks with children, music may become to them more than drill and study. They should know it as an art, full of beauty and of dignity; full of pure thought and abounding in joy.

One of the chapters, entitled “Music and Reading”, begins: “A beautiful thing in life is the friendship for books.”

Ahh yes, yes it is. The author mentions the pleasure of reading the letters and biographies of the great composers, but I think mainly he wanted to talk about how much he loves books in general! Good books “present beautiful pictures to us truthfully, or they present truth to us beautifully.”

If you read good books you will have in every volume you get something well worth owning. You should bestow upon it as much care as you would want any other good friend to receive. And if it has contributed help or pleasure to you it is surely worth an abiding place. A fine pleasure will come from a good book even after we are quite done with it. As we see it in years after it has been read there comes back to one a remembrance of all the old pleasures, and with it a sense of thankfulness for so pleasant a friendship. Hence any book that has given us joy or peace or comfort is well worth not only good care, but a place for always; as a worthy bit of property.

And that is why I have too many books. They are my friends and have earned “an abiding place” on my shelves.

I’ll let you know when this audiobook is finished and ready for download, but in the meantime if you want an audiobook about music you might enjoy this series of Thomas Tapper’s little biographies of great composers for children:
https://librivox.org/stories-of-great-composers-for-children-by-thomas-tapper/

Sorry, fell behind due to illness and depression. I’ll post three chapters now to catch up with my podcast feed:

The Trumpet of the Swan: 07 School Days
The Trumpet of the Swan: 08 Love
The Trumpet of the Swan: 09 The Trumpet

Off to Montana, banana, banana!

The Trumpet of the Swan: 06 Off to Montana

The Trumpet of the Swan: 05 Louis

The Trumpet of the Swan: 04 The Cygnets