In 2008 the new popularity of audiobook's stimulating ability to inspire children and young adult’s minds are about to be honoured with a new award which is a stamp of excellence on par with the famed Newbery and Printz awards.

The newly created 2008 American Library Association's Odyssey Award for excellence in children and young adult audiobooks rides the exciting worldwide trend in aural edutainment.

In Germany March 2007 there is a whole fair devoted to audiobooks. Nominations have just been announced in Cologne in March for the 2007 German Audiobook Prize, which can be seen as the equivalent of a German Oscar and are parallel to the celebrations of a highly respected literary festival.

The children's section of the German audiobook convention was this year particualrly successful and represent a large market for young European audiobook listeners.

So get ready to explore and discover exciting stories of adventures with famous authors of the new world! Exciting stories of adventure and spine tingling action..

Fire breathing fantasy dragons, fairies, family adventure and time machines...

In the 1950s kids hid behind the lounge when Professor Bernard Quatermass battled aliens on the BBC. ITV gave us Pathfinders in Space, the brainchild of Canadian Sydney Newman.

These days, we face the many choices of providing education vs entertainment to children. Many people attempt to read bedtime stories to their children but after a busy work day time can slip away or be considerably shortened.

Altogether literacy and comprehension have been challenged in the last few years, even though there's an overload of information!

With quality audiobooks, at the click of a button your child can be a pirate drifting off to a virtual treasure island or some far away galaxy within a blink of an eye and enjoy painless enriching learning too.

Recent research by teachers in Boston and San Diego schools assessed students who used audiobooks over a period of four to six weeks. They found students using audiobooks not only read more, their reading over this period improved substantially compared to control groups who used text alone.

Test scores showed greater improvement in both reading, comprehension and fluency. Students with ADD and ADHD also showed improvements in concentration. This is great news regarding many children who simply refuse to read.

Listening to audiobooks not only enhances verbal endurance when listening to information. It helps reading fluency, expands vocabulary and increases comprehension.

Struggling students are easily distracted, find reading alone uninteresting or find discovering a book that appeals to them difficult when the range of visual images available are so ever present.

Digital Talking Books or audiobooks mean children can listen to the great stories with a computer, CD, MP3 or any other portable device such as an ipod or iphone.

Talking Books really do make unique, perfect gifts for these reasons.

Imagine what it would have been like growing up listening to:

* Hans Christian Anderson

* Mark Twain

* Sydney Newman

* Lewis Carroll

* CS Lewis

Audiobooks have been designed to not only stimulate, educate and nurture imagination but also to entertain.

Audiobooks which have proven to be popular for boys:

* The Book of Pirates

* Treasure Island

* Peter and the Starcatchers

Audiobooks which have proven to be popular for girls:

* Matilda

* Anne of Green Gables

* Alice in Wonderland

Audiobooks which have proven to be popular for preschoolers:

* A Bear Called Paddington

* Bob The Builder

* Anderson’s Fairy Tales

Audiobooks which have proven to be popular for slightly older kids:

* Harry Potter

* Dr Who

* Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator

* The Chronicles of Narnia

* Pendragon

* A Series of Unfortunate Events

These are stories that help children to use language with imagination. They learn the emotive language of colourful theatre, emotional self expression and spoken words they may not learn correctly if they were to just read books.

Life is an adventure as well as a learning experience and Harry Potter’s adventures never sounded so good.