A fellow homeschool parent, innocently mentioned to me one day how their family listens to books instead of reading all the time.   She was explaining how it was a nice change of pace and actually the cost wasn't much more than purchasing a book and sometimes even less.   I had to check this out.     So I did and I LOVE it!   AUDIBLE.COM (http://www.audible.com) has a very wide selection of books available for purchase.  You can download them onto your computer, iPod, MP3 player and more!   Once purchased, they are available for downloading as many times as you'd like.    They have several different payment plans.   You have the option to be a member or not; however, the cost is higher if you are not a member.    We purchased the yearly plan.   Audible Listener is available for $9.95 a year.   We receive about an average of a 30% discount and can purchase a book anytime.   For those listeners who would buy more, they offer a Gold & Platinum membership as well with opportunities to earn credits towards books.

Why would we do this?  I have 3 children - 12; 14 and 16.  We use a curriculum that calls for some old classics which, even I admit, can be difficult in reading smoothly sometimes.    The children love this idea of being able to listen (and follow along in the book).    It's worked very well for us.

We've listened to Beowulf (an epic poem in Old English set in the Viking era).  My oldest is currently listening to The Scarlet Letter by Nathanel Hawthorne and we just purchased A Christmas Carol  by Charles Dickens.  We've read A Christmas Tale before and we watch it each Christmas season, but thought we'd listen to it this year for a change.