Audiobooks reconsidered

Antiques, huh? This is actually the record player that replaced the one I listened to as a child — the one my little sister used. In this picture, it’s playing The Three Little Pigs for the hundredth time. And those are all records my brother and sister and I listened to: Johnny Appleseed, Pecos Bill, The Wizard of Oz, Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, Ferdinand, Bread and Jam for Frances… It’s really a huge assortment.

I spent hours of enjoyment listening to them, poring over the accompanying paperbacks and record jackets. When my daughters were born and I needed to sing to make them laugh or sleep or burp, these records provided the songs that came out: “Hush-a-bye Mountain,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “The Apple Song,” “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah,” even this ditty from “The Red Wagon”:

Rain is good for grass and trees
bugs and turtles, birds and bees!
But listen to me, girls and boys:
Rain will wash the paint off toys! So
always put your toys away
on a rain-rain-rainy day!

I suppose this hallowed room in my memory is part of why I’ve praised audiobooks in the past. My girls have a good selection (with more modern technology, of course!), and we’ve often checked them out of the library.

But lately I’ve been reconsidering. Though my oldest has become an independent reader in terms of skill, I’ve noticed that she rarely picks up a book of her own volition except during the times I specify are for reading. However, she’ll almost always put an audiobook on in the playroom while she pursues one of her hands-on activities. My husband reminds me that our girls have their own personalities. Maybe they won’t be “book geeks” like their mother. But I want to do what I can to encourage them to love books, the great democratizers and repositories of wisdom, just the same.

So even though I still believe in the virtues of audiobooks, there’s a devil’s advocate rising up in my mind, perching on my shoulder, arranging her red tail and pitchfork and pointing out:

1. Books are not an exclusively auditory phenomenon. They are visual too. Unless the girls are following along in the book (which rarely if ever happens), listening to audiobooks is not qualitatively different than listening to music or anything else.
2. Books require concentration. But my daughters put them on “in the background” while they play. What author would want their work, which they’ve crafted with soul-searching and inspiration and perspiration, to be part of the background soundscape?
3. Books require work. Audiobooks do not. Why do the work of laboring through Misty, bound by your skill level and slowed in your eager desire to find out what happens next, when you can stick an audiobook in?
4. Books read “manually” (?) provide opportunity to stop and reflect. Audiobooks march relentlessly on.
5. Books are a choice. To pick one up and engage is to choose against playing with legos, drawing, or riding your bike. You are confined to your real-world limitations as a real-world person. This seems like something that would have a beneficial effect on character, as well as placing a right value on reading. (i.e. It’s worth choosing, worth foregoing other enterprises.)
6. Books are quiet and private. Audiobooks fill the community air with whatever you happen to be listening to. Whether one is reading or not, being comfortable with quietness is a good thing.
7. Books, once you can read them independently, put you in touch with your own inner reading voice. Generally, I don’t go to see the movie till after I’ve read the book (and even then sometimes the movie images supplant my own imaginative ones). Why substitute the voice of Dustin Hoffman, Cherry Jones, Kelsey Grammer, even (quake) Jim Weiss, before my daughters have gotten to know their own inner voices?
8. Books connect people. Before children become fluent independent readers, audiobooks make it possible for them to listen to some stories a hundred times in succession, and of course this takes the burden of rereading off the parent, their real-life Re-Reader-Aloud. (?) One side of me loves this. But my wiser side tells me that these days are precious. Why surrender those hundred rereads to even Arnold Lobel or E.B. White? (I ask because I do have the time and availability to read to them. I realize some parents don’t.) I still have stories I hear in my father’s (Rabbit and Skunk and the Scary Rock) or my mother’s (the Little House books) voice. Why would I want to withhold my voice from my children?

Oooh, that last one is a zinger. Is it a red devil, or an angel of light? I’m not sure. But I am sure that wisdom usually reflects balance. In the past, I think I’ve taken pride in the fact that “we listen to books rather than watch t.v.” But I’m paying more heed to the differences between books and audiobooks, being more proactive about physical books, and deferring from further addition to our audiobook collection — through either the library or the store.

It’s an experiment. I’m curious to see whether it makes any difference.