Audio CD's for US to 1877

[mom2h]

Wanting to purchase a couple of audiobooks for this year. We live in a small town and are on the road a couple of times a week for music lessons, doctor appointments, ACT prep class. We have always used this time for listening to school-related material.

I'd like to have suggestions from anyone who has heard a particularly good version of any of the required books for this year:
Red Badge of Courage, Billy Budd, Huckleberry Finn, Scarlet Letter, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 101 Great American Poems, etc...

Thanks!
Rhonda (mom2h)

[Julie - Staff]

I'd like to have suggestions from anyone who has heard a particularly good version of any of the required books for this year:
Red Badge of Courage, Billy Budd, Huckleberry Finn, Scarlet Letter, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 101 Great American Poems, etc.

I thought the Red Badge of Courage by Scott Brick was better narrated than some. The audio series was meant for a younger audience and Scott Brick sounded like an American young man, which seemed appropriate for the story. You can listen to a sample at Audiobooks.com.

If no one chimes in with personal experience on the others, then I recommend listening to a few samples to see what you like. Scroll past the intro, which often isn't done by the actual narrator, and listen to just a bit to see if the narrator matches your vision of the book. Most are classics so also free from Librivox.org, but the quality will be inconsistent since each chapter may have a different volunteer narrator; I'd listen to a sentence from several different chapters.

I think it would be hard to use the American Poems on audio, since you are doing groupings over time, and sometimes connecting the poems by the same author in the Amer. Lit Supplement or Early Amer. Lit book. Of course, listening to poetry read aloud is always a good thing to add in.

Julie