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Poem of the Day number ten: A Wee Little Worm by James Whitcomb Riley.

This one is short enough for you all to memorize and recite it to everyone you know :)

Poem of the Day, number nine: What Do We Plant? by Henry Abbey.

I love this poem! I’m still in the ICCU at UCSF. Notice that one braid is thicker than the other? We had to cut off most of my hair on one side because the surgeon put some kind of insoluble sticky stuff in my hair and it turned into an impenetrable glob! Oh well. It’ll be a new fashion. :)

Poem of the Day, number eight. Mr. Finney’s Turnip, by Anonymous (that means we don’t know who wrote it).

Coming to you from the Intensive Cardiac Care Unit at UCSF, where I had skull surgery yesterday to relieve pressure on my brain caused by a subdural hematoma. Google it! :)

Poem of the Day number seven: The Field Mouse by William Sharp

Poem of the Day number six: Holding Hands, by Lenore M. Link

I love this one! Stay safe out there. Wash your hands (and tails)!

Poem of the Day, number five: Mary’s Lamb, by Sarah Josepha Hale

Stay home, wash your hands, be safe! <3

Poem of the Day number four: I Love Little Pussy by Jane Taylor. Awwwwww <3

Poem of the Day, number three. The Cat of Cats, by William Brighty Rands.

Poem of the Day number 2: Hurt No Living Thing, by Christina Rossetti

Take care of yourselves! Stay at home, wash your hands

Inspired by Sir Patrick Stewart reading a Sonnet a Day, and Yo-Yo Ma sending out Songs of Comfort on twitter, I’ve decided to record a Poem a Day from a book of children’s poems. I hope this will give my young (and older) fans something to look forward to!

I don’t know if you’d prefer to see my face while I read, or to read along with the text. I did the first one both ways. Let me know what you think!

If you know the English version by heart, you will be able to understand the German version fairly well! The translation is excellent, there are lots of cognates, and the pictures help of course :)

(I made a couple of small mistakes, sorry, but overall I think I did rather well for a one-take recording!)

Here’s another Christmas audiobook for you! The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, by Barbara Robinson. It’s funny and heartwarming and very Christmassy :) Those Herdmans are the worst kids ever!

You can find all the chapters, and a new podcast feed, here:
http://kayray.org/barbara-robinson/

This is your yearly reminder that I made a recording of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” for librivox a few years ago. I just listened to it while I had a nap. It’s a very good recording, if I do say so myself :)

https://librivox.org/a-christmas-carol-version-6-by-charles-dickens/

All nine chapters are ready for you to enjoy, maybe while you decorate your tree or watch the Netflix fireplace :)

http://kayray.org/phillip-v-snyder/

Subscribe to the book as a podcast by copy/pasting this link into your favorite podcast app:
http://kayray.org/audiobooks/christmastreebook.xml

While reading the chapter about electric Christmas lights and bulbs, I added a little note about our old antique Santa bulb! Here it is. I don’t know whether it was originally from the Shallenberg side or the Jacobs side, but it’s really old for sure! Behind Santa you can see a reproduction of one of the old German ornaments made of cotton batting and crinkled wire in the shape of a bird’s nest.



Also, the text mentions the custom of making a little village, farm, or nativity scene under or near the tree. That’s totally a tradition in my family, too, maybe from my German heritage (on both sides). What traditions or special old ornaments do you treasure?

Two more chapters of The Christmas Tree Book!

Chapters 5-6 are finished and ready to download here:
http://kayray.org/phillip-v-snyder/

Subscribe to the book as a podcast by copy/pasting this link into your favorite podcast app:

http://kayray.org/audiobooks/christmastreebook.xml

Me, recording this morning :)

I re-read this book just about every year — I love it — so this year I decided to record it for you!

Chapters 1-4 are finished and ready to download here:
http://kayray.org/phillip-v-snyder/

Subscribe to the book as a podcast by copy/pasting this link into your favorite podcast app:

http://kayray.org/audiobooks/christmastreebook.xml

Finished! You can download all chapters from the Maud Hart Lovelace page:
http://kayray.org/maud-hart-lovelace/

or you might want to subscribe to these books as podcasts with the following RSS links:

http://kayray.org/audiobooks/betsytacy.xml
http://kayray.org/audiobooks/betsytacytib.xml
http://kayray.org/audiobooks/bighill.xml
http://kayray.org/audiobooks/downtown.xml (typo in podcast feed is fixed so Chapter 2 should appear if you re-subscribe)

That’s my preferred method of audiobook-listening because a) it’s so easy and b) most podcast apps will automatically set a bookmark when you stop listening so you’ll never lose your place. Most podcast apps will also allow you to skip forward and backward by reasonable amounts (unlike music players) and set a sleep timer.

I prefer Bookmobile by Freshmowed. It’s extraordinarily full-featured and therefore has a steep learning curve, but once you figure it out, WOW, it’ll do everything but braid your hair.

Overcast is another good option. You can even use Apple’s built-in “Podcasts” app in a pinch. (Android users — what’s your favorite podcast app that works well for audiobooks?)

Whichever app you use, you’ll copy the url that ends with .xml for the book you want. Then find the place in your podcast app where you can “subscribe with url” or “subscribe with RSS” and paste that link in. Tell your app to download all chapters and *never delete them* (if you’re using Apple’s “Podcasts” app there’s a setting for this in the “settings” app on your phone). Make sure they’ll play in the right order. If they’re mixed up, you may be able to order them manually or make a playlist, depending on your app — but they’ll probably be fine if you tick either “oldest to newest” or “newest to oldest” (again, this depends on your app).

Let me know if you need screenshots of this process in one of the three apps I mentioned.

Happy listening! :) Shall I continue on with Betsy and Tacy? In the next book, Heaven to Betsy, the girls are 14 and about to enter highschool!

I get a lot of lovely messages from listeners who gently encourage me to continue with Betsy-Tacy — so guess what! I have jumped back in to Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown. I’d forgotten how much I already had completed — seven chapters — and I’ve just recorded another two. Only five more to go! I’m going to try to get it all finished before my next big train trip (I’m going all the way to New York next week), but in case I don’t quite get to it you can listen to what’s already finished by visiting https://archive.org/details/kayrayreadstoyou7

Enjoy! And check back soon for the final five chapters :)

All five of my Bagthorpe novels by Helen Cresswell have podcast feeds now!

Copy and paste these RSS links into your podcast app:

Ordinary Jack
http://kayray.org/audiobooks/ordinaryjack.xml 

Absolute Zero (the funniest one! omg! )
http://kayray.org/audiobooks/absolutezero.xml

Bagthorpes Unlimited
http://kayray.org/audiobooks/unlimited.xml

Bagthorpes Vs. the World
http://kayray.org/audiobooks/vstheworld.xml

Bagthorpes Abroad
http://kayray.org/audiobooks/abroad.xml

Miss Stubborn and the Unicorn

Miss Stubborn, who is the stubbornest creature in the world, doubts her friends when they tell her they’ve seen a unicorn. She doesn’t believe in unicorns! There’s no such thing as unicorns! And when she meets the unicorn herself? She still doesn’t believe in unicorns! Stubborn till her last breath :)

Quick vocabulary list for ya:

stur – stubborn
Wetterbericht – weather forecast
goss es – it poured
schüttete es – it showered
Regenschirm – umbrella
Quasselstrippe – chatterbox
Du errätst niemals – you’ll never guess
ungewöhnliches – unusual
irre – crazy
Einhorn – unicorn
Unsinn – nonsense
Aua – owie, boo-boo
ganz aus dem Haüschen sein – to be all excited
verkünden – to declare
stolz – proud
glauben – to believe
Sonnenschein – sunshine
Widerrede – back chat
kitzeln – to tickle
Vielfraß – glutton
Wirrkopf – scatterbrain
Einrad – unicycle
unübersehbar – conspicuous, unmissable
Pracht – glory, splendour
Pferd – horse
Überraschung – surprise
Atemzug – breath of air