Easy Listening

 by April Everett Rowan Public Library

                Like many in our community, I am fortunate to have parents who took the time to read to me every night before bed as I was growing up.  I firmly believe this early auditory connection to literacy at instilled in me a love of reading.  Fast forward eighteen years to college, where I majored in English and managed to eliminate all the childhood joys of reading in one brief semester (reading 45 novels for one class will do that).  Despite a four year hiatus from “reading for fun,” I somehow found my way back to my roots and reestablished my love of reading.

Fast forward another six years to my first job out of graduate school, which came with a 50-minute one-way commute.  By the time I would get home from work, I was exhausted and not in the mood to sit down with a book.  Then a fellow librarian introduced me to audiobooks, these wonderful mechanisms that allow you to read and drive at the same time!

Audiobooks are not a new invention.  The early days of audiobooks relied on LP recordings of available print materials.  In the 1930s, the Library of Congress created “talking books” for the blind.  By the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs were funding audiobook recordings of classic works that were staples of library and classroom collections.  Early recordings were typically a straight reading of a printed text by one person with little or no characterization, music, or sound effects.

Today’s audiobooks come in a range of options.  Some productions offer a full-cast of narrators, with alternating voices creating distinct characters for the listener.  Others offer a single narrator tasked with a fully voiced recording.  Narrators can profoundly impact the way the listener perceives characters and plot.  Take, for example, the Artemis Fowl children’s series, primarily narrated by Maxwell Caulfield.  His ability to seamlessly transition between characters—whether female or male; Native American or British—is certainly notable.  My husband and I listened to the entire series and were aghast to find that book five in the series had a new narrator.  While the interim narrator was equally as talented as Caulfield, his characterization of Butler (one of the main characters) completely changed the way we had perceived Butler’s demeanor and even his stature. 

For avid book lovers, it may feel like “cheating” to listen to an audiobook.  But there are many proven literacy benefits to be gained from listening to a well-read audiobook.  There has been a great deal of research supporting positive effects on vocabulary development, fluency, and comprehension.  Take, for example, Life of Pi by Yann Martel.  I tried to read the book years ago and found myself bogged down in foreign words and names that I could not pronounce.  Listening to the audiobook allowed me to have an authentic reading of the text in which the narrator had done the work of researching pronunciation and accents.

Being an audiobook narrator may seem like an easy job, but there’s a lot that goes into making a top notch production.  Narrators are responsible for pacing, setting, and mood, in addition to presenting the voices.  Many narrators color code scripts to keep track of changes in points of view, and they always read the book from cover to cover at least once prior to recording.  As in the case of Life of Pi, narrators are also responsible for researching pronunciations of unfamiliar words or names and being able to sing tunes if required by the text.

Beyond the recording studio, there is a whole team of people who make the audiobook come to life, including a studio director, producer, recording engineer, and postproduction engineer.  Audiobooks can take anywhere from three weeks to three months to produce.  Most audiobooks are released at the same time as their print counterpart, but publishers often have the ability to create one quickly if a book unexpectedly hits the best sellers list.

Before your next road trip or commute to work, stop by your local branch of Rowan Public Library and consider checking out an audiobook version of a book you enjoyed reading.   If you have a mobile device or computer, visit www.rowanpubliclibrary.org and download a free audiobook from one of our subscriptions to NCDigital, OneClick Digital, and more.  Compare how the narrator affects your perception of the characters, scenery, and other aspects of the book this time around.  In the process, I’m confident you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how quickly you get to your destination!