http://librivox.org/kayrays-storytime-by-various/

It’s a collection of children’s stories and rhymes, and includes:

Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
The Old Woman and her Pig by Sara Cone Bryant
The House that Jack Built by Randolph Caldecott
Mother Goose by Eulalie Osgood Grover
The Old Man’s Bag by T. W. H. Crosland
Struwwelpeter: Merry Stories and Funny Pictures by Heinrich Hoffmann
Johnny Crow’s Garden by L. Leslie Brooke
Johnny Crow’s Party by L. Leslie Brooke
Book About Animals by Rufus Merrill
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
Androcles and the Lion by Joseph Jacobs
The Master Cat, or Puss In Boots by Charles Perrault
The Little Red Hen by Florence White Williams
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
The Slant Book by Peter Newell
The Rocket Book by Peter Newell
and
The Mythological Zoo by Oliver Herford

They’re almost all picture books (except for a few that are chapters from larger books) and you can find them online at Project Gutenberg if you want to look at the pictures.

Thanks for proof-listening and cataloging, Elli! :)

http://www.archive.org/post/408542/archiveorg-will-be-dark-on-wednesday-january-18-to-protest-sopa-and-pipa

12 Hours Dark: Internet Archive vs. Censorship

The Internet Archive believes that it is critical to protest and raise awareness of pending legislation in the United States: House Bill 3261, The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and S.968, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).

Archive.org is going dark from 6:00 am – 6:00 pm PDT on Wednesday January 18 (14:00 – 02:00 GMT) to drive a message to Washington. We need your help to do this.

Legislation such as this directly affects libraries (pdf) such as the Internet Archive, which collects, preserves, and offers access to cultural materials. Furthermore, these laws can negatively affect the ecosystem of web publishing that led to the emergence of the Internet Archive.

These bills would encourage the development of blacklists to censor sites with little recourse or due process. The Internet Archive is already blacklisted in China—let’s prevent the United States from establishing its own blacklist system.

For United States residents, please take action.

For non-US residents: Sorry for dragging you into this, and if you are willing, sign a petition to the State Department to express your concern.

–Internet Archive

For United States residents, please take action.

http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

or ->

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

or ->

Here is the Congressional Switchboard Telephone Number:

1-866-220-0044

Be sure you have your ten-digit zip code so the switchboard can direct your call to the correct congressperson who represents you. You can find your ten-digit zip code on any piece of junk mail that reaches your home.

I really need to do a quick wrap-up of the end of December so that Future Kara can remember all the stuff that happened. Let’s see… I finished making Dan’s “Discipline” hooked rug on Christmas morning before he woke up. He loves it. In fact, he loves it so much he doesn’t want to walk on it, so we’re going to hang it on his office wall. Henry loves his cozy warm robot quilt. I love my tangerine-orange KitchenAid stand mixer and the wonderful stack of books that everyone gave me, and my jigsaw puzzle, and the amazing huge framed Link to the Past map!

Henry and I had a bit of an adventure when we bought the Christmas tree, a new variety called a Grand Fir, which was beautiful, inexpensive, long-lasting, and smelled amazing. I hope we can get a Grand Fir next year too. Anyway, after we bought the tree we discovered that Henry’s learner’s permit was missing. We retraced our steps and asked the tree guys to look for it, but it was just gone. And Henry was scheduled for his driver’s test a few days later, so it was a real problem! Next day we went to the DMV and got a new permit, and then immediately found his old one in the car. Hilarious. Problem solved. :) And he passed his test! He can now drive himself to and from kung fu, and even run errands for us. Excellent.

I printed out my Christmas Village at 50% and built it and it’s so tiny and cute! (Make your own: http://www.archive.org/details/SantasChristmasVillage)

One more thing — here’s the frog I knit for Elli:
(Ravelry page http://ravel.me/kayray/tf)

Wie der Grinch Weihnachten gestohlen hat:
http://www.archive.org/download/KayrayReadsToYou/dergrinch.mp3

My German isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty good :)

How the Grinch Stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss. Read aloud by me with help from Karen the Cat.

http://www.archive.org/download/KayrayReadsToYou/childs_christmas.mp3

It’s a really odd feeling, though, knowing he’s at Kung Fu but that he drove himself there and will drive himself back. I’ve driven him everywhere for 16 years.

Baked two kinds of cookies and two enormous pizzas with Chloe this evening. Super fun! And then we watched most of this great George Harrision biography, which had a ton of footage and photos that I’d never seen.

All tired out. Bed, book, cat, Dan.

Well, after all these months I finally have the scans ready for you to download. It took a lot of work because the original book was quite large, so I had to slice up every scan and do a lot of rearranging to make them all fit on 8.5 x 11 paper. Sorry, non-USA friends, I don’t have it in me to optimize for A4 paper, but each image is no larger than 7.5 x 10 (I allowed for a half-inch of margin on each side) so if you print at something like 95% I think it will work. Test first on one of the larger images and make sure nothing gets cut off.

Ok! Here ya go! Print, cut, assemble, enjoy!

http://www.archive.org/details/SantasChristmasVillage

Anyway, I’ve added “Stories of Great Composers for Children” to the “Kara’s Free Audiobooks” podcast:

Basic feed: http://kayray.org/audiobooks/podcast.xml
iTunes link: itpc://kayray.org/audiobooks/podcast.xml

Or if you can’t wait and want the whole audio book now:
http://librivox.org/stories-of-great-composers-for-children-by-thomas-tapper/

And the “Kayray Reads to You” podcast is still working on “By The Great Horn Spoon”:

Basic feed: http://kayray.org/audiobooks/kayray_reads.xml
iTunes link: itpc://kayray.org/audiobooks/kayray_reads.xml

Or get the whole audio book and many others here:
http://www.archive.org/details/KayrayReadsToYou

Enjoy!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/23/anne-mccaffrey-pern-dies-85

Dragonsong and Dragonsinger were my favorites. They made a huge impression on me when I first read them as a 10-year-old (I still re-read them every few years). Menolly was a wonderfully real girl — brave enough to run away and live Holdless for the sake of her music, but as shy and insecure as I was.

Thanks, Anne.