Audiobook facts for kids
Audiobooks, also called "talking books," are recordings of someone reading a book aloud. Imagine listening to your favorite story instead of reading it!
Today, you can find audiobooks on CDs. Older versions might be on cassette tapes. That's why they were sometimes called "books-on-tape." Now, you can also download audiobooks from the internet. Some are free, and some you pay for. You can even find them pre-recorded on special MP3 players.
Audiobooks are great for many reasons. They help children learn to read better. They also make it easier for people who are blind to enjoy books.
How Audiobooks Are Made
Many popular books are chosen to become audiobooks. The person who wrote the book, the author, might help choose who reads it. This person is called the narrator. Sometimes, authors like to use the same narrator for many of their books. This gives their audiobooks a similar sound or style.
Images for kids
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Caption reads: "The phonograph at home reading out a novel." From Daily Graphic (New York), 2 April 1878. Less than a year after the invention of the phonograph, this drawing offered a future vision. Novels however would remain impractical for phonographs until the 1930s.
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Audiobook used to disseminate information among farmers in Kenya.
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Example of an audio studio for professional readings. The studio is surrounded in sound baffle panels to mitigate reverberation from the speaker, allowing the microphone to pick up clearer audio.
See also
In Spanish: Audiolibro para niños
