ONE OF the recurring delights of children’s audio books is the number which are read by top-flight actors, actresses – and even poets. But what makes an actor of Robert Powell’s calibre accept a commission to read Alan Garner’s books for children? It can’t be the money. “It was a happy combination of his own love of the books, and Alan Garner’s enthusiasm for him as a reader,” says Stella Paskins of HarperCollins. “We were very lucky to get him.”
Powell certainly gives Alan Garner’s Elidor, The Owl Service, The Moon of Gomrath and The Weirdstone of Brisinghamen (each c.3hrs, Collins, pounds 8.99) everything he’s got. I found that these abridgements allowed the imagination to range more freely than the recent fine, but necessarily visual, television version of the books.
Rik Mayall reading Dr Seuss’s zany, pop-eyed children’s classics was, says Paskins, another labour of love It is also a match made in heaven. Parents listening to The Lorax and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish (both c.12 minutes, HarperCollins, book and tape pounds 6.99) will appreciate how cleverly thought-out Dr Seuss’s internal rhymes are for starter readers.
Mayall thoroughly enjoys the insane and rumbustious logic of such rhymes as “in yellow sox/I box my Gox/I box in yellow/Gox box socks.” As usual, Side 1 is read to the accompaniment of bouncy sound effects; Side 2 has no sound effects and an end-of-page “ding” to guide young readers.Also for younger children, Roger McGough gives considerable added value to Nick Butterworth and Mike Inkpen’s pretty and perky but somewhat bland tales of Year 1 (Sports Day, School Trip, both 12 mins, Hodder, book&tape, pounds 7.99). Again, side 2 is for learner readers.Comfortable, humorous and wholesome, June Whitfield is a perfect granny substitute for the increasing number of families with career-bound grandparents. She makes the most of the vivid characterisations in two new Dick King- Smith stories, Clever Duck and The Swoose (2 hrs, Cavalcade, unabridged, pounds 7.99). In classic King-Smith style, they are both about intrepid little animals keen to escape from the rut of farmyard life.Margaret Mahy’s stories always sound well on the ear.
The Horribly Haunted School (2 hrs Cavalcade, unabridged, pounds 7.99), read by Richard Midgeley, is no exception. Plenty of larger-than-life characters and a neat twist at the end will ensure that six-to-10-year-olds enjoy the undoing of the ghastly Sogbucket, the nastiest of the teachers in the Brinsley Codd School for Sensible Thought, by the streetwise and ghost-aware young Monty.Tintin without the pictures seemed unthinkable. But, in fact, the BBC’s release in spoken word form of an eight-year-old radio dramatisation of Herge’s inimitable Tintin (c.3hrs, BBC, pounds 7.99) works very well indeed. You appreciate Herge’s characterisation better for being led through the stories, rather than glancing through them.
