Summers are meant for family vacations - time spent driving to distant locations for sightseeing, swimming, lounging and playing. Why not make your time in the car more entertaining by checking out some audiobooks the whole family can enjoy? The following titles are suggestions for summer listening suitable for middle school kids and up.
Across Five Aprils
(2002, 1964)
Young Jethro Creighton grows from a boy to a man when he is left to take care of the family farm in Illinois during the difficult years of the Civil War. Target audience: grade 6+.
The Call of the Wild
(2003)
A dog is taken to Alaska where he becomes a leader of a wolf pack. Target audience: grade 6+.
Anne of Green Gables
(2003)
Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her. Target audience: grade 5+.
The Railway Children
(1999)
When their father is sent away to prison, three London children move to the country where they keep busy preventing accidents on the nearby railway, making many new friends, and generally learning a good deal about themselves. Target audience: grade 5+.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
(2001)
The story of the Nolan family, including daughter Francie, and life in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn during the early part of the 20th century.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
(1999)
Dramatic adaptations of the adventure trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien about the odyssey of the hobbit Frodo Baggins who has to keep the Ring of Power from falling into the hands of the evil Sauron as he travels to Mordor where he must cast it into the Crack of Doom in order to save the world. Target audience: grade 6+.
Around the World in 80 Days
(2005)
In 1872, English gentleman Phileas Fogg has many adventures as he tries to win a bet that he can travel around the world in eighty days. Target audience: grade 6+.
The War of the Worlds
(2005)
The ultimate tale of Earth's invasion, written by one of the fathers of the science fiction genre. They came from a depleted, dying planet. Their target: the riches of a moist, green Earth. With horrifyingly advanced machines of destruction, they began their inexorable conquest. The war for Earth seemed destined to be ... but was it? Target audience: grade 6+.
The Sea of Trolls
(2004)
After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls. Target audience: grade 5+.
Troy
(2002)
The last weeks of the Trojan War are told from the point of view of the women of Troy. Target audience: grade 9+.
Blood Red Horse
(2005)
A special horse named Hosanna changes the lives of two English brothers and those around them as they fight with King Richard I against Saladin's armies during the Third Crusades. Target audience: grade 6+.
Journey To the River Sea
(2002)
Sent with her governess to live with the dreadful Carter family in exotic Brazil in 1910, Maia endures many hardships before fulfilling her dream of exploring the Amazon River. Target audience: grade 4+.
The Teacher's Funeral
(2004)
In rural Indiana in 1904, fifteen-year-old Russell's dreams of quitting school and joining a wheat threshing crew are disrupted when his older sister takes over the teaching at his one-room schoolhouse after mean old Myrt Arbuckle "hauls off and dies." Target audience: grade 5+.
The Road To Memphis
(1996)
Sadistically teased by two white boys in 1940's rural Mississippi, a black youth severely injures one of the boys with a tire iron and enlists Cassie's help in trying to flee the state. Target audience: grade 8+.
Coraline
(2002)
Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others. Target audience: grade 5+.
Time Stops for No Mouse
(2002)
When Linka Perflinger, a jaunty mouse, brings a watch into his shop to be repaired and then disappears, Hermux Tantamoq is caught up in a world of dangerous search for eternal youth as he tries to find out what happened to her. (Part of a series.) Target audience: grade 6+.
Raven's Gate
(2005)
Sent to live in a foster home in a remote Yorkshire village, Matt, a troubled fourteen-year-old English boy, uncovers an evil plot involving witchcraft and the site of an ancient stone circle. Target audience: grade 5+.
The Merchant of Death
(2005)
Fourteen-year-old Bobby Pendragon begins his new life as a Traveler, moving between worlds and time periods in this first installment in an adventure series. Target audience: grade 5+.
Wolf Brother
(2005)
6,000 years in the past, twelve-year-old Tarak and his guide, a wolf cub, set out on a dangerous journey to fulfill an oath the boy made to his dying father--to travel to the Mountain of the World Spirit seeking a way to destroy a demon-possessed bear that threatens all the clans. Target audience: grade 5+.
The Golden Compass
(1999)
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North. (Part of a series.) Target audience: grade 7+.
The Amulet of Samarkand
(2003)
Nathaniel, a magician's apprentice, summons up the djinni Bartimaeus and instructs him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the powerful magician Simon Lovelace. (Part of a series.) Target audience: grade 6+.
The Breadwinner
(2002)
In Afghanistan, a country controlled by the Taliban, a courageous young woman pretends to be a boy in war-torn Kabul in order to support her family. This story can be sobering and chilling and is best listened to with an adult. Target audience: grade 5+.
Seedfolks
(2003)
One by one, a number of people of varying ages and backgrounds transform a trash-filled inner-city lot into a productive and beautiful garden, and in doing so, the gardeners are themselves transformed. Target audience: grade 6+.
Buddha Boy
(2004)
Justin spends time with Jinsen, the unusual and artistic new student whom the school bullies torment and call Buddha Boy, and ends up making choices that impact Jinsen, himself, and the entire school. Target audience: grade 7+.
Dunk
(2003)
While hoping to work as the clown in an amusement park dunk tank on the New Jersey shore the summer before his junior year in high school, Chad faces his best friend's serious illness, hassles with police, and the girl that got away. Target audience: grade 7+.
Big Mouth and Ugly Girl
(2002)
Matt Donaghy has always been a Big Mouth, but it's never gotten him in trouble until the day he is accused of threatening to blow up Rocky River High. Ursula Riggs has always been an Ugly Girl and a loner. But Ursula is the only person who knows what Matt really said that day, and she is the only one who can help him. Target audience: grade 6+.
Norman Tuttle on the Last Frontier
(2004)
Episodes in the life of Alaskan teenager, Norman Tuttle, as he grows from ages thirteen to fifteen, falls in love for the first time, and deepens his relationship with his father. Target audience: grade 5+.
Granny Torrelli Makes Soup
(2003)
Rosie and her friend just can't seem to get along, but Granny Torrelli knows just what to do to make things better. Target audience: grade 4+.
The Truth About Forever
(2004)
The summer following her father's death, Macy plans to work at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where she makes new friends and finally faces her grief. Target audience: grade 7+.
Inkheart
(2003)
Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service. Look for Inkspell, too! Target audience: grade 5+.
Flush
(2005)
With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of this floating casino is emptying his bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home. Target audience: grade 5+.
Saving Francesca
(2003)
Sixteen-year-old Francesca could use her outspoken mother's help with the problems of being one of a handful of girls at a parochial school that has just turned co-ed, but her mother has suddenly become severely depressed. Target audience: grade 9+.
Miracle's Boys
(2001)
Twelve year old Lafayette's close relationship with his brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death of their mother. Target audience: grade 6+.