In-car DVD players have become the standard for keeping kids quiet in the back seat for long road trips, but all that dash-time can be used for more than the same old cartoons and Disney movies that children watch in the living room. Instead, use that time to introduce the kids to classic fairy tales and books.
Many classic fairy tales and children’s stories are available for free download on Apple’s iTunes or out on the Internet. Once downloaded, these free audiobooks can be synced with any of Apple’s iPod music and video players or copied to other portable media players.
Finding the stories
Although many fairy tale audiobooks are available on the internet, Apple’s iTunes Store is one of the best places to find a variety of stories in one spot. Once you have downloaded Apple’s iTunes, just type in the phrase “fairy tales” into the iTunes store search search dialogue box in the upper right had corner and several authors will come up in the list below. Click on the Price menu in order to sort by price and bring the free stories to the top. If there is a subscribe button rather than a get button in the list, that means that the story is in a series of podcasts.
Subscribing to the podcasts will bring up all of the podcasters’ stories available to be downloaded. Many of the authors have recorded the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersens fairy tales collections, which include classic stories like the Little Mermaid, Rapunzel, and the The Three Bears. Other offerings include American Fairy Tales, Fairy Tales for Grown-ups, Family Folk Tales, Strange Fairy Tales and World Tales.
Two of the most popular authors are are StoryNory and Fairy Tale Corner. Both authors offer the audiobooks for free download directly from their website and from the Itunes Store. Both authors are still recording new stories. StoryNory has published a new children’s story every week since November 2005 and according to their website, more than a quarter million story mp3s are downloaded each month.
Playing the stories on something other than an iPod.
In most cases, the way to get the stories to another player rather than an iPod is to convert the file to an MP3 music file. Find the file in your iTunes library and right click the story (apple or command-click in Mac OSX) and select convert to MP3. Next, right click the newly created file and select Show in Windows explorer or show in Finder for Mac OS X. The stories can also be burned to a standard audio cd or an MP3 CD with iTunes and a blank cd. Create an iTunes playlist with the stories that you want and click burn in the lower right hand side. The next option screen that comes up will allow you to choose between an audio CD or an MP3 CD. Most new car stereos and DVD players can play MP3 CDs.
