Today, in my Christmas Audiobook Extravaganza, a little something in German :)
Wie der Grinch Weihnachten gestohlen hat
Hint: “wie” means “how”. “Weihnachten” is “Christmas”. “Gestohlen hat” means “stole”. And “der Grinch” is… “the Grinch”. :)
I can’t find this book for sale anywhere, darn it. Well, read along with your English copy and you’ll learn a little bit of German, perhaps!
The Sweet Smell of Christmas: a scratch-and-sniff picture book. I had this book when I was little and loved it! Sorry you can’t scratch-and-sniff while I read to you :)
Click the image to see the book on Amazon and buy your own copy!
Amazon blurb:
Christmas is almost here! Little Bear can smell it—and so can you! The air is filled with the aroma of gingerbread cookies, minty candy canes, the piney Christmas tree, and yummy hot apple pie. Celebrate the holiday season with this classic Golden storybook which includes six scratch-and-sniff scents.
Another Melendy Christmas chapter for you! This time it’s a chapter from Spiderweb for Two, the last Melendy book. I’m in the middle of recording this book; I hope to finish in January if I can stop coughing!
Spiderweb for Two, 07 The Joyous Season
Click the image to see this book on Amazon and buy your own copy:
Amazon blurb:
Randy and Oliver Melendy awake one fall morning full of gloom. Their brother and sister are away, the house seems forlorn and empty, and even Cuffy, their adored housekeeper, can’t pick up their spirits. Will they have to face a long and lonely winter? But a surprise message in the mailbox starts a trail of excitement and adventure that takes them through the cold season. When summer finally comes around again, the children have found fourteen messages in all, and the end of the search brings them a rich reward.
Today in my Christmas Audiobook Extravaganza we have the Christmas chapter from a wonderful book called “The Four-Story Mistake”. If you like this chapter, you can find the rest of the audiobook on my “Kayray Reads to You” page.
The Four-Story Mistake, Chapter 8: Noel, Noel
Y’know, this is a fantastic book in a fantastic quartet of books. It would make a great Christmas present for your favorite kid (or adult who loves kids’ books)! Click the image to see it on Amazon. Get the rest of the Melendy books while you’re there :)
Amazon blurb:
Into the Four-Story Mistake, an odd-looking house with a confused architectural history, move the Melendy family — Mona, Rush, Randy, Oliver, Father, and Cuffy, the housekeeper. Though disappointed about leaving their old brownstone in New York City, and apprehensive about living the country life, the four Melendy kids soon settle into this unusual new home. Here, they become absorbed in the adventures of the country, adjusting themselves with all their accustomed resourcefulness and discovering the many hidden attractions that the Four-Story Mistake has to offer.
The Four-Story Mistake is the second installment of Enright’s Melendy Quartet, an engaging and warm series about the close-knit Melendy family and their surprising adventures.
Today in my Christmas Audiobook Extravaganza:
Chapter 7, the final chapter of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!
Click this link to subscribe in iTunes: Kayray Reads to You
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Chapter 7
(Click the image to see the book on Amazon and buy your own copy!)
Today in my Christmas Audiobook Extravaganza:
Chapter 6 of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!
Click this link to subscribe in iTunes: Kayray Reads to You
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Chapter 6
(Click the image to see the book on Amazon and buy your own copy!)
Today in my Christmas Audiobook Extravaganza:
Chapter 5 of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!
Click this link to subscribe in iTunes: Kayray Reads to You
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Chapter 5
(Click the image to see the book on Amazon and buy your own copy!)
Today in my Christmas Audiobook Extravaganza:
Chapter 4 of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!
Click this link to subscribe in iTunes: Kayray Reads to You
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Chapter 4
(Click the image to see the book on Amazon and buy your own copy!)
Today in my Christmas Audiobook Extravaganza:
Chapter 3 of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!
Click this link to subscribe in iTunes: Kayray Reads to You
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Chapter 3
(Click the image to see the book on Amazon and buy your own copy!)
Today in my Christmas Audiobook Extravaganza:
Chapter 2 of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!
Click this link to subscribe in iTunes: Kayray Reads to You
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Chapter 2
(Click the image to see the book on Amazon and buy your own copy!)
Guess what! I have just filled my “Kayray Reads to You” podcast feed with Christmas stories! There will a chapter every day from now till Christmas (and maybe after).
Click this link to subscribe in iTunes: Kayray Reads to You
Today, we start with the first chapter of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Although it was first published in 1971, I missed out on it when I was a kid and didn’t discover it until Henry was little. Hope you like it! There are seven chapters and I’ll podcast one chapter every day, so be sure to refresh your podcast list daily, or come to my blog to download directly.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Chapter 1
(Click the image to see the book on Amazon and buy your own copy!)
Still sick. Thank you very much for the kind get-well comments and the praise for my recordings :) It thrills me that there are so many of you who love the Melendy family as much as I do! I hope that someday I’ll stop coughing long enough to record some more.
Sick, sick, sick. I stayed in bed all day and watched season one of Boardwalk Empire, which is just as good as everyone says! I’m totally hooked. Kind of glad I didn’t discover it before now, because it sure is helping to pass the time while I recover from whatever-this-is. I don’t think it’s the flu because I never had chills and aches, and I only had one day of fever. Whatever. It’s no fun.
I can smell turkey and onions and other nice Thanksgiving smells through my open window.
If you’re looking for something really great to listen to while you wait for me to finish Spiderweb for Two, may I recommend The Dark is Rising? It’s a completely different kind of story, but it’s so good and so well-written that I can’t imagine anyone not liking it. I’ve been listening to it again a lot lately. It’s on my “karabooks” playlist which I listen to all night. I’ve been falling asleep to a book which is further up on the playlist, so that I wake up to The Dark is Rising.
Here’s chapter one:
Pt1, Ch1 – Midwinter’s Eve
If you like it, you can find the rest on my Kayray Reads to You page.
Well, even though I’m fairly miserable, I’m very very thankful that I’m not sicker, and I’m not in the hospital, and I’m very cozy, and the cat keeps me company all day, and my lovely family keeps checking on me.
And another chapter of Spiderweb for Two! This is a really good one, and it made me think that around Christmas I should put all the random Christmas chapters out of all the books I’ve recorded into my podcast feed.
Spiderweb for Two 07 The Joyous Season
How perfect is the author’s depiction of that cold, crisp, snowy, winter weather? I’ve experienced that kind of weather just a few times and this chapter brought it all back so vividly.
Hey guess what? My latest LibriVox audiobook, Just William by Richmal Crompton, is finished and ready to download!
Just William is the first book of hilarious short stories about 11-year-old William Brown — eternally scruffy and frowning. William’s family, his elder sister Ethel and brother Robert, placid mother and stern father, and never-ending supply of elderly aunts, cannot understand him. William just likes DOING things, that’s all! It’s not his fault he likes DOING things, is it?
http://librivox.org/just-william-version-2-by-richmal-crompton/
Thank you, Elli, for proof-listening and cataloging and cheering me on :) :) :)
Here you go, Melendy fans! Fresh from my microphone. :)
Spiderweb for Two: 05 A Pocketful of Gold
Oliver’s explorations remind me very much of when I was a little kid growing up on a mountain in the foothills of California. Different wildlife, but the same sense of wandering around and noticing all the life in the forest, and watching the birds and the insects, and foraging for edible wild plants. We sucked the nectar from manzanita blossoms, nibbled Miner’s Lettuce, and chewed the tart juice out of the stalk of a yellow flower that we called “sourgrass”. Fun.
Dearest readers,
I have just discovered that, months ago, my WordPress software stopped notifying me when y’all leave comments, which means that, since comments from readers who haven’t commented before need my approval before being posted, an awful lot of you have left comments that I never read and that never showed up here.
I’m so sorry!
Yesterday I went through a huge backlog of comments and OK’d all the non-spam ones. Except for the one from the guy who was complaining about content in one of the history books I narrated. Dude… I’m just the narrator, I didn’t write the thing. You’ll have to take your complaint about content up with the (dead) author.
And a BIG thank you to all of you who left so many kind and encouraging remarks. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you enjoy my recordings and look forward to them! When life gets difficult those friendly comments not only cheer me up but inspire me to keep recording my audiobooks.
I’ll try to record more of Randy and Oliver’s treasure-hunt adventures tomorrow :)
And I’l try to remember to sort through the unposted comments frequently!
Hey Melendy Fans,
There are two more chapters of Spiderweb for Two up on archive.org:
03 The Resting Place
04 The Emperor’s Abode (Don’t you just love Mr. Titus?)
I’ll put links to the whole book on my “Kayray Reads to You†page when the book is finished, and of course I’ll add all the chapters to my podcast feed.
On the librivox.org forums we have a thread where people can post general thank-you notes for the whole team (there’s a different thread for thank-you notes to individual readers).
This recent note warms my heart:
I teach in a maximum security prison. Most of my students had never read a book before. I have been using librivox audio readings with them to help them read the book as a class. It has made a tremendous difference for these men. Every time we finish a book they are anxious to start the next one. Thank you to all those who have put forth the time and energy to do the readings. You have made a great impact on these men’s lives.
Wow :)
Hey Melendy fans,
I just recorded the second chapter of Spiderweb for Two. It’s the one where Cuffy tells a wonderful story about her childhood on a farm in Wisconsin and her adventures with a boy named Francis.
Both chapters are already up on my Archive page. To make it easy for you, here are links:
Spiderweb for Two 01 The Shadow’s Peak
Spiderweb for Two 02 A Loving Heart
(I’ll put links to the whole book on my “Kayray Reads to You” page when the book is finished)
P.S. The book that is mentioned, Little Lord Fauntleroy, is a real book by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I haven’t recorded it yet, but there are a couple of versions on librivox:
Burnett, Frances Hodgson. “Little Lord Fauntleroy” (group version; I read six chapters.)
Burnett, Frances Hodgson. “Little Lord Fauntleroy (version 2)” (solo version)
