Winnie-the-Pooh (By A.A. Milne)

Our 4yo son loves Star Wars legos and can rattle off a story about traveling to Mars as fast any other rocket-focused litle boy. But, he ADORES this Winnie the Pooh audiobook and asks for it every morning on the way to school. His parents love it too. First, it is not disneyfied Winnie - it's the original stories. So, it's got great language and sweet phrasing with words that are not often used in modern story books for children. This definitely has expanded our son's vocabulary beyond space-themed terms. Second, it has a great cast with lovely voices that emote and infuse real personality into their characters - Stephen Fry as the "bear of little brain," Judi Dench as motherly Kanga, Jane Horrocks as Piglet (hilarious squeaky voice!), Geoffrey Palmer as the sad-sack Eeyore, among others. It's wonderful that an English-accented cast narrates a book by an English author, it gives the stories a childhood charm. Finally, there is little violence (just a pop gun that shoots a ballon) and lots of friendship and reassurance that "everyone is all right, really." Since we have such a rough and tumble little guy, we didn't expect him to love it so much. But, it's one of the few audio books that makes him laugh out loud, worry about the characters, and talk about right and wrong (for instance, when Rabbit proposed loosing Tigger in the forest to make him a small and sorry Tigger so that he would lose his bounce). He enjoys it so much that we have both audio books - Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner - and we have frequent driveway moments finishing out a chapter before we leave the car. You won't regret giving this a spin - even if you just check it out from the library