If dictation is such a powerful tool–which I’m hoping to convince you that it is–why don’t more families do it? Why is it simply mentioned in passing in books about kids and writing?

One reason. I’ll bet you can figure it out.

It’s not a technique used much in schools.

Why?

They can’t pull it off.

Sometimes you’ll hear of kindergarten and first grade classrooms in which volunteers write down what kids want to say. But that sort of help is phased out quickly because in classrooms–traditional ones anyway–kids need to know how to write. That ability to write is how a teacher keeps up with so many kids, and what they’re all thinking and learning.

Learning to write is hard. I believe that it’s one of the hardest childhood tasks that kids take on. If you haven’t read my post Take Five Minutes and Try This, I hope you’ll check it out. And find five minutes to try the exercise. It will help you understand how ridiculously challenging it is to be a fledgling writer.

In the workshops mentioned in that post, when participants wrote the second time, they wrote with what educators would call fluency. They wrote without thinking much about what their hands were doing, or how the letters should be formed, or how to spell each word. For the most part, they could concentrate on their thoughts rather than the task of transcribing those thoughts to the page.

Young, developing writers don’t yet have this fluency. They’re like the participants in the first part of the exercise: putting their focus on each letter, and then the letter that comes next. While more fluent kids are able to hold an entire sentence in their minds and work toward the end of it, less fluent kids lose track of where they are as they struggle to remember if the belly of a D faces right or left, or to wonder why when looks funny when they spell it oen. (And if that spelling–a favorite of my oldest at six–looks odd to you too, say the word aloud to understand where it comes from.)

Developing fluency takes years. Just as it takes years for a child to learn to speak in full sentences, in a mostly conventional way, to go from saying ba ba ba to why can’t I have my dessert first? Writing is even more complicated. There’s the formation of those letters to consider, and how to combine those letters to form words, and how to string those words together into sentences that make sense. Most likely it will take three, or four, or five years–or more–before a child can write without much thought to those details, and focus on the ideas he or she hopes to transcribe to the page.

With talking, we allow children that babbling ba ba ba time. We let their speech develop naturally—some kids say their first words at ten months, others at eighteen. They move from single words to simple sentences when they’re ready.  But with writing, our society seems pressed to force the process along. As soon as kids hit the first grade, we push the responsibility of writing at them like it’s a basket of dirty laundry and a box of detergent, expecting them to take over the task, saying in effect, it’s your job now, kid.

And as homeschoolers, if we aren’t pushing our kids to write at six, we’re often worrying about why they aren’t writing.

I’d like to suggest a different model.

What if, instead of expecting our kids to write at six, we let their writing develop more slowly, more organically, like we did when they learned to talk? It’s likely that their writing might first consist of a word or two labeling a drawing, or a sign made for a lemonade stand, or a name attached to a gift. It might look like this.

And as their writing is developing naturally, we can take dictation from them. Why?

• Dictation allows them to express themselves freely, without being limited by their mechanical writing skills.
• Dictation lets them convey higher-level ideas, which they may not be capable of writing on their own.
• Dictation encourages longer, more complicated sentences and words, which are likely to get lost when a fledgling writer transcribes on his or her own.
• Dictated writing allows a child to share his or her written expression with others. It helps kids begin to see the value of capturing one’s words on a page.
• The process of seeing their words transcribed allows kids to painlessly pick up on writing mechanics: spelling, grammar, punctuation. Learning these skills in the context of their own writing makes those skills pertinent, valuable and interesting to a child. (Rather than boring as a book of math drills.)
• Conversations about content that occur while kids are dictating help them begin to think like writers.
• Young children tend to be expressive, creative speakers. They haven’t developed self-consciousness when they speak. Dictation allows them to capture that voice, and apply it to their written expression. On the other hand, when kids must write on their own, taking years to develop written fluency, the naturally expressive voice of childhood has often disappeared by the time they’ve developed the skill to transcribe it.
• Time spent taking dictation is time in which a parent is immersed in the ideas of the child. It can be a joyful parent-child experience.
• Dictation allows a child to develop a voice as a writer. This, I will argue, is the most important writing skill we can pass along to our children. The mechanics of writing get mastered over time–they do–but some kids never develop a written voice, a confidence and personal style on the page. I hope to convince you that mechanics should be a secondary part of the act of writing, and to give you faith that those mechanics will develop in time. I hope to help you make nurturing your child’s written voice the goal of his or her writing education.

I’ll elaborate on all of these points in upcoming posts, but I wanted to give a road map of where we’re headed. Next stop: how to begin taking dictation.

A note to readers: I’ve talked to many of you, via comments left here, or via email, or in person, about positive experiences with taking dictation from your child. I hope you’ll share your experiences in the comments! And to those of you for whom taking dictation hasn’t been effective, there will be opportunities to share here as well. Comment on!

What is dictation?

Dictation, to me, is simply writing down something that your child wants to have written down. It could be a story, but it could just as easily be a theory about life on Mars, or a description of a fairy house just built, or the words of a ditty that you catch him singing as he eats his toast. It’s an easy practice, but there are ways to make it work smoothly, and I hope to discuss those here.

What’s the big deal about dictation?

This is what I hope to crack open and explore this month. I believe that taking dictation from kids is a powerful, but largely underused tool for helping kids develop their voices as writers. It isn’t widely used in schools, simply because that isn’t feasible, but I think it has great potential for homeschooling families. And it’s really for kids of all ages: from those just beginning to talk to older teenagers who might be struggling to express something in writing. It’s also a technique that kids who go to school can do with their parents at home.

Why are you doing this?

• Mostly because I think these ideas might be helpful to parents, and I want to share them.
• I’d love to have other families test these ideas out, so we can all get a better sense of what works and what doesn’t. I’d like to build a community of writing families here on the Wonder Farm.
• You may remember the William Zinnser quote I posted about a few weeks back, from Writing to Learn: ”I thought of how often as a writer I had made clear to myself some subject I had previously known nothing about by just putting once sentence after another–by reasoning my way in sequential steps to its meaning. I thought of how often the act of writing even the simplest document–a letter for instance–had clarified my half-formed ideas.” I’m hoping that lingering with this topic for a month, and responding to those of you who contribute will clarify my own ideas about dictation. Which will help me write that book on homeschooling and writing that I’m plugging away at.
• I’ve just left my oldest child at college for the first time, 3,000 miles away, and my middle child  has stopped homeschooling for the first time in her life, and started high school. As you might imagine, I could use a big project right now.

How do we start?

I recommend that at first you simply read along here, and ponder the ideas a bit. I don’t want to get you all fired up about dictation, and have you pounce on your child with your New Big Idea! Anyone who has homeschooled for any length of time has probably discovered this: the more excited you are about a notion, the more leery your child is likely to become. (Perhaps my kids have ultra-developed sensors to keep me at bay because I’m always buzzing with some crazy idea, but I think this is a fairly universal theorem.) One of the most important things to remember about taking dictation is that you want to do it because your child wants to–not because you think it’s a good idea.

But how will my child decide to dictate, when I’m the one reading here?

That, my friends, will be the topic of an upcoming post. I do hope you’ll come back!

How do I join in the project?

There are several ways you can participate. You can simply read along, and try out ideas that might work for your child. You can leave a comment–and I’d love it if you would–to tell how something worked, or didn’t work. You can ask questions of me, or of other readers, in the comment section as well. There will be opportunities to share writing which your child has dictated, if your child is agreeable. And if you write about dictation on your own blog, you can leave a link to your post in the comments, so readers can find you.

Please spread the word about The Dictation Project: on your own blog, with your friends, with your homeschooling communities. The more families we can get to join in, the richer the exploration of this topic will be.

Coming up tomorrow: thoughts on why taking dictation from kids can be such a powerful tool.

So what do you think? Any of you interested in joining along, if your child is willing?

This weekend Chris and I brought H to NYU.

I started writing a maudlin post with lots of wrenching details like the sight of H’s boxers intermingled with the family laundry for the last time, and the sorrow of shopping at Whole Foods without buying his peanut butter Clif bars. But it was just too much. Too personal, too close.

I will say this. That last hug is as hard as you imagine it will be. But it helps when you start to let go, and he just keeps holding on. I can still feel his arms around me, squeezing me back. I’m hanging on to that.

It’s also no slight solace that technology makes the world so much smaller these days. My boy may be 3,000 miles away, but we’ve talked, texted and emailed. This afternoon I reminded him to eat his fruits and veggies.

His dorm is on 10th and Broadway in New York City. Think of that! He has a world of excitement waiting right outside his elevator door.  I’m hanging on to that too.

For now, I try not to cry every time I walk past his empty bedroom. I told Mr. T to expect extra hugs from me because I can’t give them to H. And I’m trying to busy myself with other projects.

I’ve got a big one planned. Right here! Tomorrow! A big ol’ month-long project that requires audience participation. So come on back, my friends, and keep me from drowning in my own salty puddle of tears. I know you’re good for that.

This time it’s Lulu. She’s starting at the same school, as a freshman. (While her brother, meanwhile, has graduated, and is off to college.)

It wasn’t a sudden decision. Lulu decided to do this a year ago, and has been planning and readying since.

It’s hard to have your kid leave a life of homeschooling, and choose school. Mr T and I will miss having Lulu around: I’ll miss her conversation throughout the day, and her cooking; Mr T will surely miss the playmate that sneaks out of the teenage girl from time to time. And it’s hard to see her leave the homeschooling support group that we’ve been part of since she was two, and her dearest friends.

I know that some homeschoolers disapprove of school, and I get a flicker of that from a few friends in our support group. But here’s the thing: Remember my last post, about following the kid? That’s what I’ve been doing with all three of my kids from the beginning. (Although, in all honesty, I’ve gotten better at it over time, as the older two taught me how well it works.) And if you follow your kids, two things happen. First, you raise kids who know themselves and have a clear sense of how they learn best.

Second, you learn to trust their wisdom.

Both H and Lulu had clear and eloquent reasons for wanting to go to school. They’d spent a lifetime choosing how they wanted to learn, and choosing school was simply the choice that seemed right at a certain point. Both had to leave behind a very safe, tight circle of wonderful friends, to do something that none of their friends had chosen for themselves. Both times, their bravery and self-determination have amazed me.

Following them hasn’t taken a leap of faith on my part. They’ve been showing me for years how wise they are about knowing how they want to learn. They’ve been assured and confident and stubborn and sometimes loud and belligerent. And as challenging as that’s been at times, they have a pretty good record of demanding the options that have ultimately been right for them. They’ve convinced me.

Yesterday, on Lulu’s second day of school, she marched into the auditions for the school musical without knowing a soul and sang. I am so proud of her. And I have full faith that she’s made the right decision.

At this point the fellow chatter usually nods, but often I can see little question marks scroll over his or her eyes. You follow your kids? What does that mean, exactly?

This is the point in the conversation when I try to give examples. Just the other day, in fact, Mr. T had me chasing him down one of his never-ending trails. I thought I’d share it here, so the next time I talk to a new homeschooler and the question marks scroll, I’ll know just the specific story to tell.

Anyway, T was doing a logic puzzle in National Geographic Kids. (My kids have all loved the magazine when they were young, although I hate the ads and the movie and video game tie-ins. If you must know.) He asked for my help. It was a full-page, detailed drawing of a couple dozen kids eating ice cream in a parlor. There were several clues for finding a specific kid, such as the person is not wearing plaid. By process of elimination, you find the sought-after kid and solve the puzzle. I told Mr. T that this sort of puzzle is called a logic puzzle.

“I love logic puzzles! What’s someone who does logic for a job called?”

Here we go, folks. Did you catch that? He’s waiting there at the metaphorical trailhead, excited. Luckily I was listening, and not distracted by the tink of a new email or some enticing just-arrived sale catalogue, as I’m sure I am plenty often when T is ready to take off. But if you want to follow your kids, you have to be there for the start of the hike.

“I think they’re called logicians.” I said, and then–this is key–I tried to say the next line as casually as possible, “You know, you can make up logic puzzles. We could make them for each other.”

If I’d said that last line too enthusiastically, Mr. T might have shut down the whole trek right then and there. A bit of wisdom, learned from my kids: There’s nothing more dampening to a new idea than to have your mother jump in and run off with it.

Now, as we had this conversation, I was putting dinner on the table, so we didn’t have time to pursue the idea further right then. But since he’d seemed so interested, the next morning I brought it up again. I told him that I remembered some logic activities in a book–Family Math–in which kids write “bean recipes”, using real beans to work out problems that are solvable.

“Beans! Why would I want to do logic problems with beans?”

I was about to tell him that we could just use the book for ideas, when he busted out with this: ”We could use my guys!”

His guys. Some of you may remember Mr. T’s guys from a post long back called When Your Kid Wants Almost Nothing For Christmas. His guys are a motley collection of small plastic creatures. Many are Digimon figures, although T knows little about Digimon. Some are Gormiti figures, which we discovered in Europe, and seem to be an Italian version of Pokemon. T doesn’t care much for the backstory of these creatures; he invents his own names and his own stories. And he adores his guys: they’re one of the few toys he plays with, almost every day.

If a project revolves around his guys, I know Mr. T will be interested. So when he says something like, “We could use my guys!”, I pay attention.

We decided to each take a bunch of guys, and to secretly select a target guy to write clues about. We would each read each other’s clues, and try to find the secret creature.

Mr. T’s first set of rules was a bit vague.

His first clue was If it’s holding something. I asked whether a guy was holding something meant that it was the mystery creature, or wasn’t. T had meant that if it were holding something, it could be the creature. I asked how he could write the clues so they’d be easier to understand. He remembered how they were written in National Geographic Kids. “I’ll write them like that next time.” (Who knew that these logic puzzles would be a little lesson in writing clearly? Most excellent.)

Then he tried out my clues.

We had fun solving each other’s puzzles, so we each wrote another set of clues. “Let’s use more guys this time!” T enthused. Okay!

Note that his clues are more straightforward this time. He was especially excited about this clue: It does not have wings on it. He stumped me with that one. One of his guys–a wingless one–had a tiny bird emblem on his chest. With wings.

I was also charmed by this clue: It does not have any fire, or lightning, on it. Don’t you love the commas? You could argue that they aren’t necessary, but he’s playing with comma usage, and that excites me–language geek that I am.

We had a fine time writing clues for each other, and solving them. Much more fun than if I’d been suckered into playing Monopoly, and a thousand times more fun than him doing a math workbook page. Mr. T got some logic practice, some writing practice, some playing-with-guys time, and some playing-with-Mama time. And he was entirely engaged. All because I followed his lead.

That’s the kind of learning I love.

Have your kids led you down any trails lately?

I decided to put the project out of its misery, rather than count off the months that had passed while I did not write a chapter a month.

It was a noble little project, it was. Write a draft of a chapter for my book each month. Sounds good, sounds proactive, sounds, maybe, doable. And I was sure that making the project public here would make me diligent.

Nope. Not even for you, my faithful readers, could I crank out a chapter a month.

A few words in my defense: I have been writing. I have! Except during June, when vacation excused me. But other than that, I’ve been busy. Just not writing chapters. Oh, I’d set out to write chapters. But then suddenly my words would drift off into unexpected directions, leaving the park confines, calling back to taunt me. Silly writer lady! You thought you’d write about audiobooks. Ha HA! We lines here are gathering amongst ourselves and striking out for new territory! This paragraph here is running off with that paragraph there, and they’re secretly spawning an entirely new chapter, maybe two! Just you try to corral us by the end of the month for your little project!

“But something happened when I actually started to write. The book took on a life of its own and told me how it wanted to be written…I didn’t fight the current. On the contrary, the writing of the book proved one of its central points: that we write to find out what we know and what we want to say. I thought of how often as a writer I had made clear to myself some subject I had previously known nothing about by just putting once sentence after another–by reasoning my way in sequential steps to its meaning. I thought of how often the act of writing even the simplest document–a letter for instance–had clarified my half-formed ideas. Writing and thinking and learning were the same process.”

William Zinsser, Writing to Learn

It’s nice to know that I’m not alone in having my writing mutiny against me. I’ve decided to take Zinsser’s advice and not fight the current.

I know I’ve used this analogy before, but I like it so much that I’m hoping you’ll indulge my repetition: The trouble with this writing thing is that writers don’t have a medium to work with, as other artists do. Not, at least, until we get some words down. A sculptor can take out a block of clay and start shaping it; she can work her hands in the clay and hear the clay tell her what it wants to be. But a writer has nothing until she sits down and writes and makes that clay. Then, after all that work the shaping starts, and the words start whispering what they really want to be.

I think I’m still in my clay-making phase. I could start up a lump-of-clay-a-month challenge! But somehow that doesn’t have the right ring.

The good news is that last month, while I dutifully tried to write a chapter, my writing gave me a new idea. A new model, really. It has to do with Zinnser’s notions above, with the idea that you learn as you write, that half-formed ideas are clarified as you try to explain your thoughts. It also has to do with you, fine readers, and your feedback. It’s all part of that little secret I alluded to in my last post, that I’ll be starting up here in September. But that’s all I’m saying for now.

So goodbye, chapter-a-month challenge. You were an admirable idea, but you just didn’t work for me. Off with your head!

(What? I hear you saying. No photos? Nope, I couldn’t think of a visual to accompany the post, short of showing my notebook and a big set of shears. But there’s always something new and visual happening on my flickr page. You can get there via that little flickr widget on the right…)

Santa Rosa plums. We planted our tree as an afterthought, an espaliered affair that hides behind our outdoor fireplace. But it gets lots of southerly sun, and it’s just above our bees so we got an unexpected bonanza this year. I followed a recipe for Santa Rose Plum Jam Conserve from local jam artisan June Taylor in The Pleasures of Slow Food. Divine! From here on out I will always leave the skins on my plum preserves because they add such twangy tart to all the sweet. (The secret: cut the pitted fruit into bite-sized chunks before cooking, so the skins aren’t too over-sized and off-putting.) Then Mr. T and I made plum ice cream. All the foodies have been blogging about David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, and rightly so. It’s full of flavors that you know will be wonderful like Pear Caramel and Guinness-Milk Chocolate. Plus all sorts of mix-ins like Buttercrunch Toffee and Candied Lemon Slices. When I brought my plum ice cream to a dinner party, someone called it the bomb. I think he liked it. (Next up: Malted Milk Ice Cream with crunched-up malt balls. Yowza!)

knitting projects. This one still needs button loops, so I don’t have modeled shots or a ravelry update yet. I’d hoped to finish it before our trip so I could wear it; instead I was still working on it on planes, trains and automobiles. It’s Ysolda’s Coraline, but I’m calling it my Smocked In Sweden sweater because I started the smocking during the long drive from Stockholm to the south. There will now always be red farm houses and purple lupine looped into that smocking. The smocking was so fun to knit that I had to remind myself to look out the window at all that gorgeousness.

I’ve always wanted to knit a gold cardigan, and after finishing that one up there, all done up in alpaca and too hot to wear anytime soon, I looked for a pattern that would work in cotton. I stumbled on this version of the knitty pattern Que Sera, and I had to flat-out copy it. All that color! All that texture! And it is the most fun pattern ever to knit while watching swimming lessons. I’m not sure the color will flatter this dishwater blonde, but I’m hoping the sweater will be stunning enough that no one will notice.

honey! Speaking of gold, look what we got. Our first honey harvest, after two seasons of keeping bees. We hadn’t planned to harvest so soon. But we don’t use foundation in our frames (you can read about that here), and sometimes without foundation, bees will build wonky comb. In this particular box, the bees built the comb in perfect rows, but diagonal to the frames. If we hadn’t been traveling, I’d have recognized it sooner, and would have cut out the errant comb or two and refastened it properly with rubber-bands. But left on their own, the colony filled the entire box this way. You can’t pull the frames from the box when the comb is attached at angles, so Chris and I had to remove several frames at a time, destroying the comb and watching honey ooze everywhere. We cut them into a big cake pan, did our best to shoo away the bees, and eventually brought it inside and used the crush-and-strain method to extract the honey. You can see a video of the method here. Basically you crush the wax to release the honey from the comb, and then strain it into a big container.

Now we have about a dozen jars of honey with a very delicate floral flavor, and lots of beeswax for crafts. Since we have two hives and a hillside of blooming lavender, there should be more by the end of the summer. Thank you, girls!

farm city. I knew about this book by Novella Carpenter, about her experiences starting a small farm on a vacant lot in a seedy part of Oakland. You might think I’d have wanted to read it, since she’s local, but I’m not so keen on books in the look-at-the-fringe-thing-I’ve-done! genre. I’ve read 168 novels in 168 days! I dressed in clothing made from trash for a year! The writing in that sort of memoir doesn’t tend to do it for me. But one day I picked up a copy at the bookstore, and was drawn in by the first line: “I have a farm on a dead-end street in the ghetto.” By the end of the first page I was won over by the writing; reading on the back flap that Carpenter “attended UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism” gave some insight into that. It’s a fun tale–despite the fact there’s enough meat-animal killing to make a vegetarian like me wince. Carpenter’s mindfulness about the process makes it readable, though, and thought-provoking. (Quirky discovery: half-way through the book I realized that Carpenter is the sister of Riana Lagarde, whose These Days in French Life flickr photos I’ve followed for a few years. Small world!)

a new blog project. I have big plans for something here in September. It’s a secret for now, but my wheels are spinning.

an anniversary. As of today, I have been married to this man for 22 years. Twenty-two years! Either we are very old, or we married very young. Or both. In the photo, it looks like he’s leading me off to a lifetime of fun. We’re still going. (Happy anniversary, Sweets.)

So you know I’m going to ask: What has you all atwitter?

I had a little anniversary a few days back. It’s been two years since I started this blog. Which I know because every summer, for the past three years, I’ve had a week or two in which each of my kids was enrolled in some camp or another, and I used the time to work on my writing. Having a week of days to oneself is quite a gift, as any of you who are fellow homeschoolers or otherwise busy parents understand. Anyway, during that week two years ago I sorta worked at my writing. Mostly I got this blog up and going. I wrote about it in my second post ever. And then I did it again last year. Hard to believe it’s here once more, my solo week of the summer. I looked forward to this week especially this year, what with all the recent excitement of graduations and world travels. I haven’t been writing much.

Lulu is off at sleep-away camp, and Mr. T at a day camp in the redwoods. And H, well, H is eighteen and hardly around here these days anyway. Sad but true.

So on Monday morning, I sat down at my computer. Inspired by a post from Ysolda, I set myself up with a pot of strong black tea.

And I spent hours researching the audiobook topic I’d planned to write about.

Well, that isn’t entirely true. I also did some freewriting on my topic. And I made a crazy web of ideas showing the main ideas I hoped to include, and how they connected to each other.

But I didn’t do much writing. By Tuesday night I was feeling dispirited, worrying that I was frittering away my one writing week of the year. Then I listened to this interview with Ann Lamott, one of my favorite writers, on Writers on Writing, one of my favorite podcasts.

At the end of the interview, she tells how she gets her writing done, and how she plans to get started as soon as the interview is finished.

“So I’m going to sit down, and my work’s going to not go all that well, but I’m going to stick with it. And I’m going to budget a certain number of hours. Today I’m going to budget three hours and that means I’ll get about two hours and fifteen minutes done. I usually budget four and that can get about two hours and forty-five minutes. I have a habit. I have a habit of very gently convincing myself to stick to it, until I get closer and closer to what I had in mind all along.”

It was what I needed to hear. The next day I sat down and wrote. And it didn’t go all that well, but I stuck with it. I tried not to get on the internet to look up audiobook sales figures, or previous audiobook articles. I didn’t check my email, or my flickr page, and I definitely didn’t mess around on this blog until I’d written for three hours.

And then I did the same thing on Thursday. And Friday. I’d love to say that I have a whole article written now, but I don’t. I write slowly. I understand that about myself. But I did make progress, and I’m getting closer and closer to what I had in mind all along. And, well, that’s something.

Can you tell me about your family and audiobook listening?

I’m starting a chapter on audiobooks for my book. (My book! Remember that old notion? Remember the chapter-a-month challenge? Golly gee whiz, I have some catching up to do.)

Listening to audiobooks together has probably been one of the most consistent activities we’ve done in our family’s thirteen years of homeschooling–a close second only to my reading aloud. From the time H was about five, we’ve almost always had an audiobook running in the car. We’ve listened to everything from Ramona the Pest to Odysseus. Nowadays H isn’t in the car with us very often, and the book is usually one that T and I have chosen together–but Lulu often surreptitiously switches off her iPod and listens along.

Both older kids also spent years listening to audiobooks in their rooms. Lulu especially. She’s an auditory learner and didn’t love reading until she was about eight. But she loved her audiobooks. And she listened to them again. And again. And again. And–it must be said–again. Mr. T has been doing the same for the last three years or so. I can’t believe that our Harry Potter discs haven’t worn down to wafers by now.

In my notebook, I’m jotting down notes about why I think we love audiobooks so much. Here are a few random thoughts.

• Audiobooks make me feel less guilty about all the driving we do. All the activity-schlepping and errand-running is instantly transformed into a literature appreciation session.
• Professional readers even make the classics captivating. Have you ever heard Tim Curry read A Christmas Carol? And Patrick Fraley’s rendition of Huckleberry Finn is a revelation. (I’ve decided that no kid should be expected to read Huckleberry Finn and all its confounding dialect, when the spoken version is such a joy.)
• On days when I’m feeling sick or lazy, or one of the kids is feeling sick or lazy, we can curl up on the couch and have someone read to us. Someone who reads really well. (And if Mama isn’t feeling too sick or lazy, she might even be able to knit.)
• Audiobooks allow kids who might not be reading yet–or may not enjoy reading–to lap up literature.
• Likewise, audiobooks allow kids to enjoy books that might be more advanced than their reading abilities.
• Listening to books–and re-listening to them!–helps kids internalize the flow and rhythm of good writing.
• Some books I just don’t want to read aloud. All those thick-as-a-dictionary Harry Potters? You may call it sacrilege, but I just couldn’t do it. And why would I want to, when Jim Dale and his universe of wondrous voices does it so much better?
• If you’re into silly phrases like vocabulary-builder, audiobooks are it. I’ll never forget the morning when seven-year-old Lulu accused her older brother of having “a severe lack of moral stamina.” (Thanks, Lemony Snicket!) I’m also pretty sure that audiobooks had something to do with H’s high SAT reading scores. Not that we listened because I cared a dang about SAT scores back then, but it’s a useful fringe benefit.
• And perhaps most dear to my heart: when we listen in the car together, our drives often become impromptu literature analysis sessions. Casual book clubs, if you will. This isn’t something I instigate, mind you, but something that just happens. Someone will say something like I think J.K. Rowling makes the beginning drag on for too long or Why is it so funny when a bad guy like Count Olaf says a word like yep? And suddenly we’re all throwing in our opinions and dissecting just what makes writing good. It’s a beautiful thing. And do I see the results of these conversations come into play in my kids’ own writing? Um, yep.

I am still a great fan of reading aloud, and would never let audiobooks replace reading to my kids. But there’s something discretely captivating about a good audiobook. Maybe it’s the professional reader. Maybe it’s the fact that we manage to get through audiobooks faster than our read-alouds–and momentum can be an important factor in enjoying a book. Maybe it’s because it takes no extra energy from me to stay in the car a little longer when we get to a really good part. I don’t know. But I do know that listening to audiobooks has played a large role in my kids’ development as writers. And I want to include a chapter about that.

So tell me: Does your family listen to audiobooks? How? When? Where? Could you share some favorites?

Please feel welcome to respond to any or all of the above, or whatever else crosses your mind. Thank you. Your feedback means even more to me than a pan of homemade vegetarian lasagna.

Plans to post from each new place we visited on our trip. (But we didn’t always have internet. And three of us with computers had to share we one Northern European adapter. Plus, there wasn’t always time for blog posts: we were on vacation.)

I had plans to keep a journal as we traveled. (When the kids were younger, we all kept great travel journals. We’d sit in cafés in Paris and write in our journals and glue in empty sugar packets. The kids drew pictures of Picasso’s art, and I listed the meals we ate. But somehow it was harder this time, keeping an eighteen-year-old and a fourteen-year-old and an eight-year-old happy all at once.  We didn’t do a lot of lingering in cafés–unless there happened to be free Wi-Fi, in which case everyone was happy to linger. The ever-resourceful Lulu did, however, manage to keep a journal with admirable diligence on this trip.)

I had plans to–at the very least–jot down notes as we went. I’ve always appreciated Pico Iyer’s advice that one ought to write down first impressions of a place right away, while everything seems new. (Did I do it? Nope. And I call myself a writer. Sheesh.)

We’ve been home for a week. I had big plans of catching up, posting about the places I hadn’t blogged about yet: Ribe, Denmark; Munich; Salzburg. (But two days after we got home–when Mr. T was still jet-lagged enough to wake up every night at 2:00 a.m. and stay up the rest of the night playing–we left again, for a long holiday weekend at the lake with family. Which was relaxing and all, but it didn’t leave me any time to catch up in this space.)

The trouble with grand plans is that they freeze you up, and make it impossible to accomplish anything. I wasn’t sure how to catch up here. Should I post about the places I hadn’t written about yet; should I post about traveling with kids in general? Should I write about how this trip was bittersweet–the last before H. goes to college, and the first in which he’d have preferred to be home with his friends rather than traveling with us?

I finally decided to stop planning this post and to just write it. Plow forward with a few highlights of the rest of the trip as they come to me, before I forget them–since I didn’t take Pico’s advice when I should have.

So, random highlights from the rest of the trip:

Making dinner in our little kitchen nook, in our bed & breakfast in Ribe, Denmark, with nothing more than a tiny toasting grill. Open-faced sandwiches, green salad and Greek salad. Not very Scandinavian of us–but we were craving veggies. * Eating it in the gorgeous courtyard garden, which we could only get to by walking out our small front door, going down the cobble-stoned street and around the corner, and through a fence. We finally hit on the idea of passing our plates out the bathroom window.

Visiting the original Legoland in Billund, Denmark and being just as amazed that so many kids in one place could have blond hair as we were with the Lego models of the world’s cities. And amazed too at the fact that Ben and Jerry’s is a big hit in Scandinavia. There’s something funny about hearing Scandinavians order Cherry Garcia * Being in Ribe for their midsummer celebration, which involves having everyone in town follow a woman dressed as a witch alongside the river, as the sun begins begins to set at 9:30 p.m., while local children dressed in old-fashioned rags berate her in Danish, and then everyone gathers to sing a song about some fellow named Sankte Hans, and watches a scarecrow-replica of the witch lady get shot down a zipline across the river into a great bonfire (and, apparently, as the old lore dictates, back to Germany.)

Re-watching The Darjeeling Limited with Chris and H on H’s computer before our own sleeper train overnight to Germany. Sweet lime, anyone? * Finding out, on said sleeper train, that sleeper train compartments sleep six, while we are a family of five. Which meant, of course, that someone (who came to be known as The Stranger) would be joining us to sleep. This freaked the kids utterly out. Turns out that The Stranger didn’t board the train until 12:30 a.m., after we had already gone to bed. Although I did mumble a little awkward hi in the dark as he stowed his backpack under my bunk. He climbed up the ladder and on to his upper bunk, and then disembarked before the kids woke up. Although I woke up when he left. And couldn’t help singing to myself lines from the old Supertramp song: Goodbye stranger, it’s been nice… * Drinking 1-liter large steins in a Munich beer garden, and watching the locals carefully salt and then eat heaping plates of shaved white radishes. Next time I’m trying those.

Commenting on a few favorite blogs in the Apple store in Munich as Chris waited in a very long line to buy an iPad cover. * Seeing the beautiful sanctuaries built in recent years at the concentration camp at Dachau, to promote peace and healing.

Watching Lulu try on dirndls. She decided not to buy one, but not until the salesgirl had tied at least fifteen different-colored silk aprons around Lulu’s waist, one after the other, searching for the perfect shade. * Seeing the German team win their World Cup game against England in a beer garden, and then watching the Muncheners take over a wide boulevard to parade and party and celebrate.

Discovering that the laundry room in our hotel had a vending machine with giant bottles of cold bubble water for 80 euro cents. There was a heat wave in Munich, and we couldn’t get enough of that cold, cheap bubble water. The machine also sold big bottles of beer for one euro each! * Taking Mr. T to the modern art museum on Sunday morning while the older kids slept.

Leaving H behind with a high school friend who’s in Munich for the summer, while the other four of us took the two-hour train ride to Salzburg, Austria for the Sound of Music tour. (Lulu’s choice.) Saw many of the film’s sites while our tour guide charmed us with his sounds-exactly-like-Arnold-Schwarzenegger accent and his lederhosen. I wish you could hear how he said streudel. Sht-ryoo-del. * Taking a break from the Von Trapp sites for an exhilarating summer luge ride down a mountainside metal chute.

Finding out, for the 11-hour plane ride home, that the plane had been overbooked, and we’d been bumped up to business class. Private compartments, seats that reclined to beds, chilled silverware and food that actually tasted good. What a way to end a trip.

And so ends a trip which began as yet another grand plan. I’ll never forget the sunny hej hej we got from all the Stockholmers (it means hello and sounds like hey hey) and I’ll never forget the young Munchener who teased us when he thought we were English, after the Germans beat the English soccer team. We talked to him for a minute amidst the celebratory crowds and he whispered confessionally to Chris, “We’re a new generation. Not for Hitler.” It surprised us. We thought he knew that we knew that–that we’ve known it for decades.

No matter how carefully you plan a trip, you never know quite what will happen, or what will stay with you in the end. Which is one of the very best parts of traveling.