Reading to a child is one of the great joys of parenthood – except when
you’re forced to read the same book a hundred times. That’s why I was
happy to find a handful of websites that will read stories aloud for me.
The Screen Actors Guild Foundation presents BookPALS, a literacy effort
that manages to persuade actors – good ones – to read popular kids’ books
in schools and online. At
www.Bookpals.net click on “Storyline” and then select a book. If a
computer isn’t handy, your child can listen to a story over the phone via
one of the numbers listed on the site.
More stories are available at
www.Candlelightstories.com. For $9.95 a year, you can listen to
children’s classics complete with sound effects and dramatic music. Some
are just a few minutes long; others offer enough entertainment for a short
car ride. They’re in MP3 format, so you can burn them onto a CD for
portable listening.
If you want a good bedtime story for yourself check out
www.Audible.com. Short descriptions
under each title give the basic storyline and the audio length. But here
you have to pay by the book or get a monthly subscription (up to $19.95 a
month).
