Are We There Yet? Great Children's Audiobooks for Long Car Rides

If it's a long trip with kids of different ages you're planning, you'll want a book like Angie Sage's exciting fantasy Septimus Heap Book One: Magyk CD (Septimus Heap) with young heroes, an evil sorcerer, and great family values to speed the miles. You might want to pack the sequels Flyte and Physik to do your own reading aloud while you're vacationing.

Or if you haven't had time to get the book for your Potterphiles and there's a long vacation ahead, you can't go wrong with English actor Jim Dale's excellent voicing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows CD. Dale handles the hundreds of characters in all the Potter audiobooks like the classic stage actor he is. Another famous fantasy in audio form is the classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe CD (Narnia), available with paperback book and CD (for listen-and-read-along practice) narrated by Pauline Baynes or in CD form only, the movie tie-in version narrated by Michael York.

Now also available, along with all its predecessors in the Series of Unfortunate Events, is the final book in Lemony Snicket's mirthfully melodramatic misadventures of the star-crossed Baudelaire children The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) [Audiobook] (Audio CD).

If you're in the mood for a laugh-in rather than a villain, a sure winner with the family are the audiobook versions of Barbara's Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and its two sequels titled The Best Barbara Robinson CD Audio Collection Ever. Christmas, Halloween, and the first day of school with the those hilariously horrible Herdman kids--what could be more fun!

For a great animal story there's the audiobook of the best-selling Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog(Audiobook), the story of one family's funny and messy adventures while raising children and a eternally well-meaning but clueless Labrador dog.

And as a jump-start audiobooks to get kids reading through a classic series while on vacation, there are Little House in the Big Woods [Audiobook], A Bear Called Paddington [Audiobook], Mouse and the Motorcycle [Audiobook], and, in a survival adventure that would please the authors of The Dangerous Book for Boys, don't overlook Hatchet. [Audiobook] (Audio CD)All of these books are the lead-off titles in beloved kid-tested series that will get the kids to your destination happy and perhaps keep them happily reading for the rest of the summer!

Bon voyage!