This is a two-for-one recommendation. One for the book, one for the audiobook recording. Last year my family became a little addicted to audio books after we listened to all of the Harry Potter series read by the award-winning narrator, Jim Dale (maybe this is a three-for-one recommendation as I highly recommend the narration performance in this series too). Ever since, we've had to have something to listen to when in the car driving around, and we've been through a handful of books now.
No matter how great the book, we've learned a lot about the importance of a good narrator. And so I have to get the word out there about Tim Curry and his reading for the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. I should say upfront that I think that I've had a crush on Tim Curry ever since I his performance opposite Carol Burnett and Bernadette Peters in Annie, and then I can't even tell you how many times I've seen the movie Clue, but all that bias aside, he's still a really fabulous narrator and our whole family has been enjoying his performance of this very clever series. In fact, we've been spellbound.
Caveat: for whatever reason, books #3, 4, & 5 are narrated by the author and not Tim Curry. As talented as the author was in forming these characters and putting their adventures together, not to mention, introducing all sorts of advanced vocabulary words in a really fun and disarming way, he is a pretty lousy narrator. Actually, my kids haven't complained about it very much because the story is still so fun--it's me who was so disappointed. Still, if you've got a long drive ahead, check your local library for the set.
