The Wild Robot (The Wild Robot #1), by Peter Brown (author), Kate Atwater (narrator)

Hachette Audio, ISBN 9781478909002, April 2016

Roz is a robot, being shipped to her intended destination, when a storm wrecks the ship that she and the other robots bound for the same destination. Their crates sink, or break up on the rocks, and Roz's is the only one that washes ashore on an island.

Some otters find the crate, and, being curious critters, they investigate, and accidentally press the button that turns her on. Roz sees the world for the first time in a place she was never meant to be, with a large database of information, and no instructions on what she's supposed to do. The otters are scared off when she speaks, and are no source of help in figuring things out.

My Teacher Flunked the Planet (My Teacher is an Alien: Book #4) by Bruce Coville (author, narrator), Rueby Wood (narrator), Full Cast Audio crew (narrators)

Full Cast Audio, ISBN 9781955324052, January 2023 (original publication June 1992)

Seventh-grader Peter Thompson and his friends, Susan Simpson and Duncan Dougal, have had some pretty startling experiences over the past year. For instance, several of their teachers have turned out to be aliens, on Earth to investigate our species and our culture. Along the way, they've experienced some pretty weird effects of the aliens' technology first-hand. Now they've been kidnapped by the aliens, and learned where all this has been headed.

The alien are trying to decide whether it's safe to let humans continue to advance our technology and emerge into the galaxy, or whether it would be the safer and wiser choice, given how violent we are even towards each other, to destroy us now before we can do any damage outside our own system. The consensus is tilting pretty heavily toward "wipe them out now."

Larry at Number 10, by E.C. Radcliffe (author), Dave Hill (illustrator)

Matador, January 2021

Larry is the famous Chief Mouser at No. 10 Downing Street, the official residence, of the UK's Prime Minister. This is a children's picture book about Larry's adventures.

Larry has been through a few Prime Ministers, but the newest official chief resident has committed an outrage; he has brought in a dog! Is this dog, Dilyn, good at mousing? Not unless it's a squeaky toy mouse! Does he do dutiful paw-trol with Larry? He does not! Is he even capable of sitting on a windowsill, keeping lookout? Of course not! On top of everything, instead of chasing mice, he chases sausage strings!

That's along with getting walks, tickles, and compliments on how adorable the silly dog is, while Larry is busy meeting Im-purrtant People.

Ghostsitter - A Crazy Inheritance (Ghostsitter #1) by Tommy Krappweis, Michael Braun (narrator), Marc Vietor (narrator), Jay Snyder (narrator), Dina Pearlman (narrator), Cynthia Darlow (narrator), Stephen Bel Davies (narrator), James Fouhey (narrator), Jenna Yi (narrator), Jessie Cannizzaro (narrator), Kevin T. Collins (narrator), Mateo D'Amato (narrator)

Audible Originals, June 2020 (original publication October 2015)

Tom is a fourteen-year-old boy living with his adopted grandmother when he receives a letter from a law firm inviting him to the reading of a will. It's the will of his great-uncle, Heinrich, his grandmother's brother. He's just absorbing that information when there's a knock at the door. The man at the door is his Uncle Welf.

It's worth noting that Tom had never heard of Great-Uncle Heinrich or Uncle Welf before.

Uncle Welf drives them to the reading of the will, where Tom learns that he will inherit more than ten million euros if he takes control of Heinrich's ghost train carnival ride, the Terror Train, and keeps it operating until he's eighteen. Uncle Welf, of course, will be his agent because he's underage, but he'll have to travel with the ride.

The Flying Flamingo Sisters, by Carrie Seim (author), Gabriel Vaughan (narrator), Bill Andrew Quinn (narrator), Jessica Almasy (narrator), Carrie Seim (narrator), Kevin Pariseau (narrator), Dina Pearlman (narrator), Khristine Hvam (narrator)

Audible Originals, December 2019

A Depression-era kids' wild romp in the sky.

When their aviator parents take off on a record-setting expedition, and then disappear over the Pacific, the Flamingo sisters--Flo, Faye, and Franny, ranging from 16 down to 9--have very little time to be worried before their Evil Uncle Freidrich swoops in to inform them he's now in charge. And girls can't fly airplanes, or aeroplanes, so he's taking possession of the girls' biplane. Oh, and they need to hand over the map to the Flamingo family treasure, immediately.

Foreverywhere,by Steve Burns (author, narrator), Steven Drozd (author), Gabe Soria (author), Carly Ciarocchi (narrator), Stephanie Mayers (narrator)

Audible Originals, August 2019

Mote the Unicorn, possibly the last unicorn anywhere, lives in the city of Anyville, and wants to start a band. This being Anyville, this isn't as unreasonable an ambition as you might imagine, although guitars and other string instruments are not something he can manage. Keyboard instruments, though, he's a wiz at.

In the midst of a very strange storm, he recruits a drummer, Rick the Giant. They find a manager, Betsy the Spider, who really digs their sound and is good at all the organizational and promotional stuff they aren't good at.

But they still need a guitarist.

My Teacher Fried My Brains (My Teacher is an Alien #2), by Bruce Coville (author), Tyler Aitken (narrator)

Full Cast Audio, 2017 (original publication January 1991)

Last year, Duncan Dougal was a minor player in his sixth grade class's struggle to save their town from the alien who was masquerading as a teacher at their school. Now he's in seventh grade, hoping to turn over a new leaf and be a better, or at least less troublesome, student in his junior high, with new teachers.

Unfortunately, he's really not good at this whole "get to class on time, don't provoke the teachers, and do the assignments," thing.

Also, there's an alien teacher at the junior high, too. And since Duncan creates conflict with everyone, he's on his own in dealing with a problem everyone else wants to believe is over.

Winnie-the-Pooh: A.A. Milne's Pooh Classics Volume 1, by A.A. Milne (author), Peter Dennis (narrator)

Blackstone Audio, October 2004 (original publication October 1926)

Christopher Robin, Winnie-the-Pooh, and all their friends have adventures in the woods and meadows around Christopher Robin's home. Eeyore is always depressed but included in the friends' adventures. Pooh has, as he himself says, very little brain, and he loves his honey, but he tries to be kind and generous, even if he doesn't always get it right. Owl lives in the Hundred Acre Wood, and everyone knows he's the wisest of them, even if perhaps he doesn't know quite as much as he might. All the friends are distressed and alarmed, and perhaps a little jealous, because of the arrival in their forest of Kanga, and her tiny child, Roo, whom she carries in her pocket.

These are delightful stories that most adults will remember from childhood, and Peter Dennis reads them beautifully.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

The Jungle Book: Mowgli Stories, by Rudyard Kipling (author), Bill Bailey (narrator), Richard E. Grant (narrator), Colin Salmon (narrator), Tim McInnerny (narrator), Bernard Cribbins (narrator), Celia Imrie (narrator), Martin Shaw (narrator)

Audible Studios, August 2015

This is a childhood favorite, and for me at least, it stands up quite well. Included here are only the Mowgli stories from The Jungle Book, taking him from his first arrival in the jungle as a toddler nearly killed by the tiger, Shere Khan, through to manhood. Along the way, he has fantastic adventures and learns many life lessons.

Kipling was born in India, and later spent years there as a journalist, and he knew the land, its people, and its animals. He was imperialistic and jingoistic, but that mainly affected his poetry, not his fiction, and he was also a close observer and an excellent storyteller. Mowgli has depth and dimension, and grows believably from early childhood to early manhood over the course of these stories.

And they are just plain fun to read or listen to. This audiobook presentation is excellent, with the multiple voices adding to the depth and variety of the characters. Well worth listening to, especially if you have children in the right age range.

I think this was a free download from Audible, or it may have been a Daily Deal.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass: With an Excerpt From the Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll, by Lewis Carroll (author), Stuart Dodgson Collingwood (author), Alison Larkin (narrator)

British Classic Audio and BMA, April 2015

This is a really beautiful recording of Lewis Carroll's classic children's books. In the first, Alice sees a rabbit wearing a waistcoat, who pulls a watch out of his pocket and frets about being late, and she follows him down his rabbit hole. She finds herself in a surreal and comical landscape, with food that makes her shrink or grow when eaten, talking animals, a cat that appears and disappears in stages, and a royal court composed of a deck of cards ruled by the King and Queen of Hearts.

The Misfits, by James Howe (author), Spencer Murphy (narrator)

Full Cast Audio, ISBN 9781933322100, October 2002 (original publication May 2001)

Bobby Goodspeed and his three friends--Addie  Carle, Joe Bunch, and Skeezie Tookis--are the misfits in their middle school. Bobby is fat and quiet, Addie is both very bright and very idealistic (and outspoken), Skeezie cultivates an image somewhere between Elvis and Fonzie, and Joe Bunch is gay.

But the middle school election for the student body government is coming up, and Addie has an idea. She wants them to participate--and not by joining in on one of the existing parties, Democrat and Republican. She wants to launch a third party, the Freedom Party, with the idea that they will represent minority students.

But the school administration is not impressed by their vague platform and the fact that they've managed to recruit a popular black student as their presidential candidate. Addie is passionate, but they don't really have a platform.

Old Bones (Casey Templeton #2), by Gwen Molnar

Dundurn, ISBN 9781459714052, September 2014

Casey Templeton is a fourteen-year-old boy in Alberta, Canada, who has a knack for finding dangerous problems to solve. In the first book, it was a hate cell. This time, it's a plot to rob the Royal Tyrrell Museum, a paleontology museum in Drumheller, Alberta.

Casey and his high school science class go to the Tyrrell on a field trip, including the opportunity to actually work on a dig. In the hot, hot sun, Casey leaves off his hat and takes off his tshirt, because otherwise he wouldn't get heat stroke, go to sleep in a closet and wake up to overhear a conversation between two men plotting the theft, and then wind up in the hospital briefly, then staying with the family of the museum director, whose daughter Mandy is an old friend from Casey's high school before Dr. Norman accepted the position at the Tyrrell.

It's possible I'm a bit impatient with that part of the story.

Nation, by Terry Pratchett (author), Stephen Briggs (narrator)

HarperFestival, ISBN 9780061658211, September 2008

In a world that isn't quite our own, in a place that isn't the South Pacific, a boy on the brink of manhood is on his way home from his ritual one-month exile, in the canoe he has made himself, when a volcano erupts and a tsunami is unleashed that, he discovers when he reaches his home island, wipes out his entire tribe.

Mau's island isn't the only one affected, but it is one of the largest locally, and the place that other survivors gradually gather in the aftermath. The first of his fellow survivors, though, before anyone else joins them, is the lone survivor of a ship from a place that isn't quite our England. She's the daughter of a man who is 139th in line for the throne, on the way to join her father, governor of the colony at Port Mercier. What she doesn't know is that influenza has hit at home, and everyone between her father and the throne has died. A fast ship is on its way from home to Port Mercier to bring him back.

Five Children and It, by Edith Nesbit (author), Samantha Bond (narrator)

Penguin Audiobooks, ISBN 9780141808734, August 2008 (original publication 1902)

A London family takes a modest house in the country for the summer, and the five children discover a sand fairy with the power to grant wishes.

Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane, and their  two-year-old brother whom they call the Lamb, also discover that wishes aren't always all they're cracked up to be. What could be more harmless than Jane's wish that they all be "as beautiful as the day"? How could wishing for untold wealth--in gold coins--go wrong? Yet over the course of the summer, the children find that more often than not they are figuring out how to get through to sunset, when the sand fairy's gifts go away.

This was a cherished favorite when I was a child, and it's still a lovely, wonderful book to read and reread. It ages very well; Nesbit's girls and boys are equally brave, clever, and loyal, with the impulsivity and unreliable judgment of real children.

Highly recommended.

Mary Poppins (Mary Poppins #1), by P.L. Travers (author), Sophie Thompson (narrator)

Listening Library, ISBN 9780739366790, June 2008 (original publication 1934)

This is a story most of us know, whether from the book or from the 1964 Disney movie. Recently it has gotten a flurry of new attention due to the new Disney movie about making the Mary Poppins movie, Saving Mr. Banks.

Mary Poppins arrives, apparently on the East Wind, at 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London, when the Banks family is in dire need of a new nanny, Katie Nanna having quit and departed quite abruptly. She is brusque and high-handed, and promises only that she will stay until the wind changes, but magical things happen all around her.

It's a charming story, and well worth reading whether you are in the intended age group, or long removed from that.

Found (The Missing #1), by Margaret Peterson Haddix (author), Chris Sorensen (narrator)

Recorded Books, ISBN 9781456104979, March 2011 (original publication April 2008)

Jonah Skidmore is adopted and thirteen years old. He's always been comfortable with this, and finds his sister Katherine, one year younger and not adopted, no more irritating than most boys his age find their sisters.

Then Jonah and his friend Chip, who is also adopted, get mysterious and vaguely threatening letters, telling them that they are among the "missing," and that someone is coming to get them back.

They start asking questions about their adoptions, and Jonah's father contacts the agency Jonah came from. He's given a name, James Reardon, who may have more information about where Jonah came from.

The Neptune Project, by Polly Holyoke

Disney Book Group, ISBN 9781423157564, May 2013

Global warming has continued to do its worst. Earth is hotter; the seas have risen; climate zones have moved; there has not been the wonderful increase in arable land envisioned by some optimists. As a result, political upheaval has produced new, fragmented, and from what we see, mostly repressive governments.

Nere Hanson is a teenage girl living in the Western Collective, somewhere along what was the southern California coastline. She remembers a happier family past when her father and mother were both marine scientists, and her older brother was still with them. Now, her father is dead, her brother has run off after a steady deterioration of his relationship with their mother, and Nere herself, with weak eyes and weak lungs, is not happy anywhere but in the ocean, with the dolphins her mother still works with. It's a tough life, but it is a life.

Their dangerous secret is that Nere and her mother, Gillian, are both telepaths.

Puss in Boots

Director: Chris Miller
Writing Credits:
      Charles Perrault (character)
      Brian Lynch, David H. Steinberg, Tom Wheeler, Jon Zack (screenplay)

Voice actors:
      Puss in Boots -- Antonio Banderas
      Kitty Softpaws -- Selma Hayek
      Humpty Dumpty -- Zach Galifianakis
     Jack -- Billy Bob Thornton
Jill -- Amy Sedaris
Imelda -- Constance Marie