Jun 28 2007
Audio Books
Busy Bee informed me in one of her comments here that she bought some audio books for Ryan, and her audio books are from MPH.
I took a trip last Friday wanted to get some for Ian too. A little disappointed as there aren’t many choices. Bookshops here do not carry many audio books. There are only one rack to choose from, and only two types/publisher, others are mostly nursery rhymes etc.
I picked one title from each, just to test out the quality first, and of course - to see if Ian accepts this or not. They are “Little Red Riding Hood”, and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”.
You can see from the photo above, that the Little Red Riding Hood looks simple, thin and cheap. Yes, it costs only RM9.90 (USD2.90). But then… I disliked it the moment I started playing. First of all, the packaging wasn’t good. The disc got stuck in the folder — as in glued! The book is okay, but the audio is bad. Music too loud, narration too soft.
For audio books, the narrator is very important. This book has a female reader, who speaks very fast, with her volume varies too much, sometimes too soft - even to the extent of whispering! I thought it was just me, but Ian also disliked this CD completely. He is too young to tell me why he dislikes it. He just asked me to turn it off as ‘it is not nice’.
When I took out the second book - Goldilocks, I was afraid he would reject it as well. To my surprise, he loved it very much. He listens to it again and again, refuses to stop even when forced to. He can now follow the reader and read the story along loudly!
The “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, is performed by Wayne Forester. He is very good in reading children stories. He reads word by word clearly, with the right speed, not too fast but having all the expressions required, right volume level. The music volume is also just right, complimenting with good sound effects that fit just right into the story.
This book has 2 tracks like the other one too. But instead of having both tracks exactly the same, track 1 is a normal story telling, and track 2 is a ‘read-along’ version. In the ‘read along’ version, it gives a drum-roll to indicate time to turn the page, and this is explained by the performer in the beginning of the track. Very children friendly.
This book is published by Ladybird. It costs a lot more than the first one, RM25.95 (USD7.60), but it is worthy.
Anyone wants the Little Red Riding Hood? I can give it out at not cost. 
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good things don’t come cheap
cheap things don’t come good