As the  Odyssey Honor voice and the 2009 Audies Award winner for Best Solo Female Narration for Curse of the Blue Tattoo, Katherine Kellgren’s talent has been featured here before. But I am so thrilled that Ms. Kellgren has taken time away from the mic to answer my “Inside the Audiobook Studio” questions below.

Now on to the interview…

1. What’s on your MP3 player?

I have just listened to Neil Gaiman’s Coraline read by the author. His reading is so wonderful – simple and straightforward, yet so full of character and nuance. It’s an education for me as a narrator to listen to him. As for the book itself, it’s no wonder it has already appeared as a stage play and a film just in this year alone. I think it’s a modern classic! Another thing that is never far from my earbuds is a recording of speeches from Shakespeare by Sir John Gielgud called Ages of Man. Alas, it’s never been put on CD, but it is available as a download. I was mesmerized by this recording when I was fourteen years old, and I still listen to it all the time. It’s an absolute favorite!

2. Tell us about your role in the audiobook community.

As a narrator I do my very best to make a book come to life in the way the author would have intended. I pour as much as I can into this, and spend a lot of time doing research on word pronunciations, working out character voices, & etc. There’s no rehearsal, and often you don’t get a second take, so I find it quite scary (although exciting) at times. Occasionally when I’m very lucky, I’ll have some help from the author. For instance, with the Bloody Jack series that I’ve been recording recently, the author, Lou Meyer, has been talking to me on the phone before I go into the studio. He’s been speaking to me about his vision of the characters, guiding me on the pronunciation of their names, and helping me with the process of tracking down the original tunes to the dozens of traditional folk songs, sea shanties, and ballads that appear in the books.

3. What was your most interesting/embarrassing/hilarious moment in the audiobook studio?

Every once in awhile, something will strike me as funny when I am recording, and I can get a tad hysterical. Once I did a novel about a woman who inherited a fabulous fortune. The book went into vast detail about the various treasures she possessed, describing and listing them for page upon page upon page. It was gobsmacking and yet fascinating, and it kept building up more and more. Finally, when I thought that section of the book was over and the characters were moving on to other topics, one of them suddenly stopped and said something to the tune of “wait a minute, what about the fourteen diamond tiaras in the bank vault?” and I lost it. I spent about ten minutes with tears streaming down my face just trying to record that one line. Every time I thought I might have it, I would look through the glass and see the director’s shoulders shaking up and down, and that would set me off again. Finally, I had to excuse myself and immerse my face in cold water.

4. What future trends or changing perceptions or technologies do you think will have the greatest/worst/revolutionary impact on the audiobook production field?

As a huge audiobook fan (in fact, kind of a geek…), I always find it wonderful when classic recordings from the early days of audiobooks are remastered and made available as downloads or CDs, but I often feel that some of the truly great ones have escaped the net and are sinking into relative obscurity because they are only available on vinyl. Companies like Caedmon and Naxos are doing wonderful work reissuing classic recordings, but I wish lots of other distributors would do the same so the public would have access to these treasures before they are lost.

5. What’s new and exciting in your part of the audiobook community?

I am excited that I had the opportunity of recording book six in the Bloody Jack series, My Bonny Light Horseman, which has recently been released. Also I am about to finish work on The Death of the Heart (written in the 1930’s by Elizabeth Bowen), and start The Salamander Spell (book five in a series for young adults by E.D. Baker). There is also Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as well as its companion volume Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. They were both, let’s just say “unusual” literary experiences, and it was a pleasure to have the chance to work on them.

Thanks so much for visiting Audiobooker, Katy! And what a great collection of upcoming titles to add to my listening list!

Mo Willems & daughter Trixie are our special guests today, as Weston Woods delivers an extra-special “Inside the Audiobook Studio.” Paul Gagne, Director of Production, recorded a fantastic audio interview with Willems, multiple Geisel Medal & Caldecott Honor recipient, and Trixie, her father’s co-star in Weston Wood’s 2007 Carnegie Medal-winner Knuffle Bunny. If you’ve ever seen Willems in person and wonder how he can calm down enough to be recorded on mic, you’ll find out who rules the Pigeon roost after listening to this marvelous interview at http://www.box.net/shared/du47zq0iu3 , captured after the Willems duo completed the audio recording for both the audiobook & animated film of The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog. Hint: she’s a pint-sized pro in the glass booth

Paul Gagne, producer of countless audio & video award-winners including a 2009 Odyssey Honor for I’m Dirty!, graciously takes the interview seat in my every-Wednesday feature “Inside the Audiobook Studio.”

1.  What’s on your MP3 player?

I use an iPod, and it’s mostly loaded with music.  Close to 12,000 songs – I’ve been an obsessive consumer of music for close to 40 years!  I usually listen to music when I’m driving, but more and more I’ve been alternating between music and audiobooks for the one hour commute to and from work.  The last audiobook I listened to was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  I just LOVED listening to Sherman Alexie’s voice and didn’t want it to end – very funny and moving at the same time.  Another title I recently listened to was Scholastic Audio’s recording of Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret.   I became so emotionally caught up in the ending of the story that I wasn’t paying attention to my driving, went through a stop sign and got a $75.00 traffic ticket.  I told Scholastic they could use that in their ad copy if they paid the ticket.  They didn’t take me up on it.

2.  Tell us about your role in the audiobook community

I’m the Director of Production at Weston Woods.  I’ve been with the company for over 31 years now, starting as a sound editor fresh out of college.  I suppose my very first “audiobook” was a radio drama based on Ray Bradbury’s short story, “The Foghorn,” that I produced for an independent study project in college.   It was pretty terrible.  Anyway, I gradually worked my way up to producing and directing at Weston Woods, and I’m now responsible for overseeing projects from start to completion.  I have a permanent staff of two – Melissa Reilly Ellard is our subsidiary rights manager and my co-producer on a majority of our productions, and Steve Syarto is our in-house audio engineer – supplemented by occasional freelancers.  Our job functions overlap in a lot of areas, but I tend to direct most of the voice recordings and work with our composers to develop a musical approach for each title.  All of our productions are pretty fully scored with original music.  We’re a bit different from most audiobook producers in that we are usually simultaneously producing a video and an audiobook recording for each title we adapt, but whether it’s a video or an audio recording, I’ve always felt that the SOUND was the most critical part of the process.  Maybe that comes from having started as a sound editor after a background in college radio, but I’ve always felt that the soundtrack is where we’re adding our own interpretation to an author’s work and bringing it to life.

We’ll frequently consult with the author both before and after the recording, and in many cases they’re directly involved.  We recently had Mo and Trixie Willems back in our studio – we started a tradition in 2005 where we’ve recorded one of Mo’s stories each year shortly after the annual ALA conference, and this year was no exception — to record the voices for an animated film and audiobook adaptation of the second book in Mo’s “Pigeon” series, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog.  Mo reprised his role as Pigeon and Trixie played the part of The Duckling!  Those sessions are always a lot of fun, and require very little direction – Mo has done a lot of stand-up comedy, and Trixie is just a natural, so it’s just a matter of letting them interact with each other in the studio and having a couple of microphones there to record it.  They improvised this bit where Pigeon and The Duckling are comparing notes on their favorite foods, and it’s just hysterical.  We also recently recorded author Amy Krouse Rosenthal reading her book Spoon, and John Himmelman’s daughter, Elizabeth, read his book Katie Loves the Kittens, which is about a dog she owned.

3)  What was your most interesting/embarrassing/hilarious moment in the audiobook studio?

Interesting:  They’ve ALL been interesting in one way or another, but being a frustrated musician I’d have to say that some of the most interesting projects for me have been the ones where we’ve taken a book with rhyming text and turned it into a song.  Antarctic Antics is probably my favorite example of this – Scotty Huff and Robert Reynolds took the 11 poems that Judy Sierra wrote for her book about penguins and set them to music!  When we told her what we wanted to do, she was just delighted – she said she actually conceived of the idea as a Broadway musical, but can’t write music herself so she turned it into a picture book instead!
Embarrassing:  I don’t embarrass easily.
Hilarious:  Way too many of those moments to count.  I always say that I have the perfect job, because where else could a group of grown adults actually be paid to stand around a microphone and moo “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?”

4)  What future trends or changing technologies do you think will have the greatest/worst/revolutionary impact on the audiobook production field?

Having just attended my first Odyssey meeting at the annual ALA conference in Chicago, I have to say that I think the creation of the Odyssey Award is having a huge impact in terms of raising awareness and generating enthusiasm for the audiobook as a vital art form.  The enthusiasm and positive energy in that room just knocked my socks off and made me feel excited to be a part of this community.

With regard to changing technologies, I think that there has been a significant impact just in the variety of digital formats that are currently popular – audio CDs, mp3 players, audio downloads, Playaway® players, etc.  Audio content is now available in a wider variety of easily accessible formats than ever before, and I think the number of audiobook listeners out there is increasing exponentially as a result.

5)  What’s new and exciting in your part of the audiobook community?

We’re very excited about the batch of titles we just released this past spring, including Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity, both by Mo Willems, Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s Math Curse, read by Nancy Wu, Ellen Levine and Kadir Nelson’s Henry’s Freedom Box, read by Jerry Dixon, and Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s First the Egg, read by Elle Fanning.   We’re currently putting the finishing touches on our fall releases, including David Shannon’s Duck on a Bike, Laurie Keller’s The Scrambled States of American Talent Show, and Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Maris Montes and Yuyi Morales, read by Maria Conchita Alonso.  On many of our new releases we are now including bonus tracks, including songs and author interviews.  We now have 40 Playaway® compilations available.

Thanks so much, Paul, for being our guest. And extra special thanks for bringing Mo & Trixie along! Stop in next Wednesday for another “Inside the Audiobook Studio!”

Talking the Talk: An Audiobook Lexicon

Sounds Good to Me: Listening to Audiobooks with a Critical Ear

ALA’s top audiobooks of 2008

Audio file of entire presentation

Why audiobooks? Listening…

• Increases fluency
• Expands listening skills
• Raises reading comprehension
• Enlarges vocabulary
• Boosts pronunciation skills
• Supports struggling readers
• Expands literature experiences for proficient readers
• Improves test scores

Increased fluency & interpretation

• Expert readers model fluent inflection & enunciation within the story’s narrative flow
• Narrator’s voice reveals punctuation, accents, dialects, and cultural vocal patterns
• Listeners hear the story through another reader’s voice, gaining deeper meaning

Audiobooks provide opportunity

• Comprehension level when listening is often two years above reading level, allowing struggling readers, English Language Learners, and those with learning differences to join the community of readers through audiobooks alone or when paired with text.

Building a community of readers

• Audiobooks allow all students access to classroom literature
• More time with text (or spoken text) = better vocabulary

Audiobook review sources

• Book Links
• Booklist
• Horn Book
• VOYA
• AudioFile Magazine
• Library Journal
• Publisher’s Weekly
• School Library Journal

Audiobook awards and honors

• ALA’s Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production
• YALSA’s Amazing Audiobook yearly list of suggest tiles
• ALSC’s Notable Children’s Recordings yearly list of suggested titles
• The Audio Publishers Association’s Audies Awards
• The spoken word Grammy Awards
• Publishers Weekly’s Listen Up Award
• AudioFile magazine’s Golden Earphones

Starting & enhancing the audiobook collection

• Investigate formats: CD, MP3, Playaway, downloads
• Decide on interfiled or separate shelving
• Piggyback with Title 1, Stimulus, or other funding sources
• Seek grants from PTO, Friends, or education foundations
• Survey language arts & resource teachers for titles & topics
• Choose “One book,” top circulating titles & local required reading Language Arts titles first

Marketing your audiobooks

• Hook commuters, teachers & parents first – survey to see where a need is perceived
• Include audiobooks in displays, booktalks, summer reading lists
• Investigate circulating players & rechargeable batteries
• Hold CD ripping, MP3 loading & public library downloading workshop, both on-site & off-site
• Create a listening club or provide listening stations in youth & teen areas
• Include listening minutes in summer reading club requirements
• Display in collaboration with craft programs: knitting, beadwork, etc.
• Promote summer time “family listening” at the local pool, with parent + child titles
• Promote at the local Senior Citizen Center with Playaways + large print
• Include diverse audiobook styles in promotions: single-voice, full cast, non-fiction, etc.

Parents as audiobook partners

• Create pre-holiday break or open house displays of family-friendly audiobooks for travel time listening
• Highlight your audiobook collection in toddler time & in parent newsletters along with research data on audiobooks
• Provide audiobook + large print material lists
• Purchase audiobook titles to supplement parent/child book clubs

Making audiobooks part of the curriculum

• Hook teachers with a long commute on audiobooks
• Lobby for audiobooks fulfilling teacher’s reading assignment quotas
• Have audiobook research reports at-hand
• Include audiobooks in pathfinders, summer reading lists, & classroom collections.

Achieving Content Standards with Audiobooks

Music

• Students identify significant contributions of composers and performers to our music heritage.

Music Connection

• Jazz / Live Oak Media ~ Odyssey Award-winning history of the American musical art form, with original compositions and jazz vocals transforming Walter Dean Myers’ poetry and Christopher Myers’ illustrations into an entirely new work.

Dramatic Arts

• Students analyze the creative techniques used in creating and performing dramatic/theatrical works and evaluate dramatic/theatrical works using appropriate criteria

Dramatic Arts Connection

• Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village / Recorded Books ~ This Newbery title was written to be performed as Reader’s Theater, as modeled by the full cast of narrators.

Visual Arts

• Students understand the impact of visual art on the history, culture, and society from which it emanates.

Visual Arts Connection

• The Pot That Juan Built / Weston Woods ~ Mexican potter Juan Quezada’s artistic process is revealed in a multilayered readalong for all ages.

Social Studies

• Students use knowledge of the purposes, structures and processes of political systems at the local, state, national & international levels to understand that people create systems of government as structures of power & authority to provide order, maintain stability and promote the general welfare.

Social Studies Connection

• Chasing Lincoln’s Killer / Scholastic Audio ~Mesmerizing factual narrative with the excitement of a murder mystery.

Science

• Students demonstrate an understanding of different historical perspectives, scientific approaches and emerging scientific issues associated with the life sciences.

Science Connection

• The Adoration of Jenna Fox / Macmillan Audio ~ Listeners will explore the issues of medical ethics, organ transplants, and the very concept of human existence.

Foreign Language

• Students demonstrate an understanding of insights gained into another culture through the examination of its practices (behaviors), products (tangibles such as monuments, food and literature, and intangibles such as laws and music) and perspectives (attitudes, values, ideas, world views).

Foreign Language Connection

• Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale / Peachtree Publishers ~ Author/narrator Carmen Agra Deedy’s bilingual reading and authentic background music provide the perfect Latino cultural flavor to this Odyssey Award Honor title.

Mathematics

• Students demonstrate number sense, including an understanding of number systems and operations and how they relate to one another.

Mathematics Connection

• How Much is a Million? / Weston Woods ~ Audio and illustrations combine to illuminate the concept of large numbers.

Technology

• Students use computer and multimedia resources to support their learning
• Identify what information is, and recognize that it can be represented in a variety of ways

Technology Connection

• Frankenstein / Tantor Media ~ Tantor’s Unabridged Classics series includes both the audiobook read by a top narration plus the entire book as a PDF file that may be read on computer or hand-held reader, allowing full-text search & print capabilities.

Language Arts

• Students define and investigate self-selected or assigned issues, topics and problems. They locate, select & make use of relevant information from a variety of media, reference and technological sources.

Language Arts Connection

• Duck for President / Weston Woods ~ A title that can be enjoyed by all ages and at many levels, made even more enjoyable by Randy Travis’ witty narration & musical accompaniment.

Language Arts

• Students acquire vocabulary through exposure to language-rich situations, such as reading books and other texts and conversing with adults and peers.

Language Arts Connection

• Blues Journey / Like Oak Media ~ A stunning readalong that recreates the title, adding original blues music to the poems that trace the history of the Blues.

Evaluating Audiobooks

Use the titles below to model the bulleted evaluative benchmarks

The Narrator as Author’s Voice

• The reading should be authentic and appropriate to content, with voices that match the time and place of the text as well as characters’ gender, ages, and moods.
• The reader should use well-placed inflections and tones and convey the meaning of the text through engaging expression, emotion, and energy.
• The reader should maintain and differentiate character voices, accents, or dialects consistently. Narrative descriptions (“He murmured,” for example) should be read appropriately.
• A single performer may read in a straightforward manner using his or her natural voice with suitable inflection and tone. Or the reader may vary his or her voice to change tone, inflection, accent, and emphasis to represent multiple characters. The reading might also be a combination of the two styles, with major or pivotal characters receiving particular emphasis. Some audios feature multiple narrators taking on specific roles and characters or full cast dramatizations.
• Recommended titles: (* notes Odyssey Award title)

* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows / JK Rowling / Listening Library

Al Capone Does My Shirts / Gennifer Choldenko / Recorded Books

Born to Rock / Gordon Korman / Brilliance Audio

Boy Meets Boy / David Levithan / Full Cast Audio

Clementine / Sara Pennypacker / Recorded Books

Deliver Us from Normal / Kate Klise / Recorded Books

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie / Jordan Sonnenblick / Scholastic Audio

The Girls / Amy Koss/ Full Cast Audio

The Graveyard Book / Neil Gaiman / Harper Children’s Audio

Ish / Peter Reynolds / Weston Woods

Marcello in the Real World / Francisco X. Stork / Listening Library

Rotten Ralph Helps Out / Jack Gantos / Live Oak Media

So Much to Tell You / James Marsden / Bolinda Audio

Wolf Brother / Michelle Paver / HarperChildren’s Audio

Window to Culture / Reflection of Region

• Cultures & ethnicities are presented authentically and without stereotype.
• Geographic terms, foreign terminology, and other challenging phrases and words should be pronounced correctly and with ease.
• Musical features match the culture and region portrayed.
• Recommended titles: (* notes Odyssey Award title)

* The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian / Sherman Alexie / Recorded Books

* Bloody Jack series / L.A. Meyer / Listen & Live Audio

Bindi Babes / Narinder Dhami / Listening Library

Bucking the Sarge / Christopher Paul Curtis / Listening Library

The Cay / Theodore Taylor / Listening Library

Dairy Queen / Catherine Gilbert Murdock / Listening Library

Does My Head Look Big in This? / Randa Abdel-Fattah / Bolinda Audio

Homeless Bird / Gloria Whelan / Listening Library

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency / Alexander McCall Smith / Recorded Books

A Pack of Lies / Geraldine McCaughrean / BBC Audiobooks America

Parrot in the Oven / Victor Martinez / Harper Audio

The Power of One / Bryce Courtenay / Bolinda Audio

Revenge of the Whale / Audio Bookshelf

Secret Life of Bees / Sue Monk Kidd / HighBridge Company

Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood / Benjamin Alire Saenz / Recorded Books

To Kill a Mockingbird / Harper Lee / Caedmon

When My Name Was Keoko / Linda Sue Park / Recorded Books

Whale Rider / Witi Ihimaera / Bolinda Audio

Behind the Booth: Production Quality

• Quality productions maintain a clean, crisp sound that allows for periods of silence and a range of dynamics, without affecting volume levels.
• The recording should be free of sibilant or plosive microphone pick-ups. Distractions result if reader moves off microphone, has an overly dry or juicy mouth, or can be heard swallowing.
• Sloppy production may result in titles that are too loud or intense, have missing or repeated text segments, show obvious dubbing or noticeable time differences in recording sessions, or contain abrupt or lengthy chapter or line breaks.
• The packaging should correctly note title, author, and readers’ names as well as accurate running times or notice of abridgement.
• Readalongs (picture book and audio sets) require additional evaluative criteria. Because the intent is for youngsters to follow along with the picture book while listening, there should be no mismatches between the words, pictures, and sound effects. Page turn signals are usually an option and these cues should allow time for young listeners to follow the text and explore the illustrations.
• Recommended titles: (* notes Odyssey Award title)

*Jazz / Walter Dean Myers / Live Oak Media

*I’m Dirty! / Kate & Jim McMullan / Weston Woods

Journey of the One & Only Declaration of Independence / Judith St. George / Weston Woods

The Golden Compass / Philip Pullman / Listening Library

The Goose Girl / Shannon Hale / Full Cast Audio

The One and Only Shrek / William Steig / Macmillan Young Listeners

Mack Made Movies / Don Brown / Live Oak Media

Peter and the Starcatchers / Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson / Brilliance Audio

Seven Blind Mice / Ed Young / Weston Woods

Gifts & Goodies: Audio Extras

• Music may be used as an introduction or to delineate mood, setting, or time changes. The background music must be unobtrusive and not interrupt the narrative flow.
• If sound effects are used, they serve to subtly enhance the production, rather than distract.
• Bonus features include author interviews, critical essays, or other supplemental audio materials.
• Added content may be informational booklets, links to web-based material, games or computer files on disk, or graphic materials such as illustrations or photographs.
• Recommended titles: (* notes Odyssey Award title)

*Dooby Dooby Moo / Doreen Cronin / Weston Woods

*Treasure Island / Robert Louis Stevenson / Listening Library

We are the Ship / Kadir Nelson / Brilliance Audio

Eagle of the Ninth / Rosemary Sutcliff / Naxos Audio

Fairest / Gail Carson Levine / Full Cast Audio

Hitler Youth / Susan Campbell Bartoletti / Listening Library

I Am Not Joey Pigza / Jack Gantos / Listening Library

The Invention of Hugo Cabret / Brian Selznick / Scholastic Audiobooks

King for Kids / Clayborne Carson, ed. / Hachette Audio

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel / Virginia Lee Burton / Magic Maestro Music

Poets’ Corner: The One-and-only Poetry Book for the Whole Family / John Lithgow, ed. / Grand Central Publishing

Series of Unfortunate Events series / Lemony Snicket / HarperChildren’s Audio

The Wall and the Wing / Laura Ruby/ Brilliance Audio

When Marian Sang / Pam Munoz Ryan / Live Oak Media

Breaking the Wall: The Art of the Audiobook

• The audiobook must stand alone as a fully-realized expression of the author’s intent and meaning.
• The mark of an excellent audiobook is one in which the wall of performance is removed so that listeners fall completely into the audiobook experience.
• Recommended titles: (* notes Odyssey Award title)

*Elijah of Buxton / Christopher Paul Curtis / Listening Library

*Nation / Terry Pratchett / Harper Children’s Audio

*Skulduggery Pleasant / Derek Landy / Harper Children’s Audio

Before I Die / Jenny Downham /Listening Library

Day of Tears / Julius Lester / Recorded Books

The Book Thief / Markus Zusak / Listening Library

Buddha Boy / Kathe Koja / Full Cast Audio

Dead Fathers Club / Matt Haig / HighBridge Audio

I, Coriander / Sally Gardner / Listening Library

Keturah and Lord Death / Martine Leavitt / Recorded Books

Lon Po Po / Ed Young / Weston Woods

By Mary Burkey, 2009

Audiobook fans, mark your calendars now: Monday 7/13, 3:30-5:30pm, McCormick Place West in W-470b. This is a free event, no ticket needed. Grab your seats early, as last year this was a standing-room only event -I even spotted a few Newbery-award winners sitting on the floor! The Odyssey Award recognizes excellence in the production of audiobooks for children & young adults, and is sponsored by ALSC, YALSA, and Booklist. The 2009 Odyssey Awards Presentation and Reception will include appearances by  Sherman Alexie, Mirron Willis, and Katherine Kellgren. Refreshments at the Odyssey celebration are courtesy of the Audio Publishers Association. Come recognize the work of the best and brightest in audiobook publishing – and the hard-working members of the 2009 Odyssey Award committee. Hope to see you there!

Odyssey Award

“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” written and narrated by Sherman Alexie, produced by Recorded Books, LLC

Odyssey Honor Audiobooks

“Curse of the Blue Tattoo: Being an Account of the Misadventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman and Fine Lady,” written by L.A. Meyer, narrated by Katherine Kellgren, produced by Listen and Live Audio, Inc.

“Elijah of Buxton” written by Christopher Paul Curtis, narrated by Mirron Willis, produced by Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group

“I’m Dirty” written by Kate and Jim McMullan, narrated by Steve Buscemi, produced by Weston Woods Studios, Inc./Scholastic

“Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale” written and narrated by Carmen Agra Deedy, produced by Peachtree Publishers

“Nation” written by Terry Pratchett, narrated by Stephen Briggs, produced by Harper Children’s Audio/HarperCollins Publishers

Have you seen the graphics on the Teen Tech Week 2009 promo items? Perfect for your audiobook section! Teen Tech Week is a great time to hold a “How to download audiobooks for free” demo, calling on Teen Advisory Board members as the experts. Maybe even send the show on the road to the Senior Center, with teens showing grandparents how to download bestseller right to their home computer – no need to travel to the library in the snow!

I wish ALA would expand the Listen poster selections – perhaps featuring the Odyssey Award winners? And have you ordered Odyssey Award seals to promote the award in your collection? Why not add some clips from the Odyssey Award winner & honor titles to your library website, featuring the titles for Teen Tech Week? I’ll be adding links on my blog to any available publishers’ clips after the 2009 Odyssey titles are announced on Monday, January 26th!

I’d like to start the speculation on this year’s Odyssey medalists by asking readers to leave a reply with your picks for winner & honor titles. The Odyssey criteria can be found here, highlighting the qualities needed by the best audiobook for listeners ages 0-18. What better place to start the Odyssey conversation than on Booklist Online, as Booklist Magazine is the sponsor of the Odyssey Award? I will hold off on my picks for now, but you can find my favorites of the year in my Audiobooker’s Choice parts One, Two, & Three. But I am sure there are titles that are your favorites that are still on my to-listen list! What audiobook do you think should be awarded the Odyssey seal?

Cast your vote below!

One of the best audiobook narrators in the business is Katherine Kellgren. Katy ably voices adult tiles such as Madeleine Wickham’s Sleeping Arrangements (BBC/Sound Library)  or youth titles such as the 2008 Newbery Medal winner Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schiltz (Recorded Books)  At the recent YALSA YA Literature Symposium, Sharon Grover moderated a panel titled “Listening is Reading: Teens Choose Books Out Loud,” which featured Katherine Kellgren reflecting on her career and her inspiration as an audiobook reader. Katy mesmerized the crowd with a reading from Bloody Jack by L. A. Meyer,  recreating her tour-de-force performance on the  audiobook from Listen & Live Audio that was named a 2008 Odyssey Award Honor title. As a member of the “Listening is Reading” presentation panel, along with my Odyssey committee cohorts Jerene Battisti and Sharon Grover, I was moved from tears to stunned amazement by Katy’s talent. Give a listen here to her presentation. If you’d like to learn more about the workings of the Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production, read Sylvia Vardell’s article “My Odyssey Voyage” or visit the ALA website.