This one is a childhood favorite of, I believe, just about everyone. For a project that involves reading favorite kids books as a Christmas present, how could I NOT read “How the Grinch Stole Christmas?”

In case you are, by some miracle of complete cultural isolation, unfamiliar with the story, here’s how it goes:

Somewhere in the mountains above a little town, wherein live hundreds of tiny, cute, and annoyingly happy people, rages a big green monster-like thing with a heart condition, hypersensitive hearing, and a history of mental illness and physical abuse. One day the noise from the town is too much to bear, and this Grinch snaps. Rather than taking his revenge on the town by hacking them all to bits with an axe, he instead embarks on a long night of home invasion, grand theft, destruction of property, and terrorizing small children. Having been thus deprived of peace and property, the townsfolk get together and send a carefully constructed series of psycho-acoustic signals up into the mountains, intent on either exploding the Grinch’s heart, or driving him off a cliff. Because of the peculiar reflections and refractions of the sound waves through the snow-covered mountain hollows to the Grinch, the wave instead cures his heart condition and his mental illness, upon which point he returns their property, and joins them in a rousing chorus of Row, Row, Row Your Boat, 99 Bottles of Beer, or some such nonsense. He also offers to pay for Cindy-lou Who’s extensive psychotherapy.

But seriously, it’s a great little story, and was lots of fun to read. Hope you enjoy listening to it, as much as I enjoyed recording it.

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When a gluttonous, naive, mono-chromatically attired man decides on a whim to stop for a box of his favorite chocolates and inexplicably leaves his criminally mischievous charge unattended in the chocolate factory, all hell breaks loose. George (a monkey), having learned that people will often ignore what they can’t explain, follows a tour group into the factory and proceeds to… monkey with the equipment. Not realizing what he’s done, he attempts to gorge himself on chocolates, while inadvertently performing the factory workers’ jobs better than even they are able. The factory, having apparently paid off local Health and Safety regulators, praises George for a job well done, and proceeds to sell the dirty chocolates touched by a hairy animal who probably throws his own feces and only washes his hands as a party trick.

As a kid, I loved Curious George, and I have to admit that as an adult, I still do. I mean, sure, he’s a bit clueless, and a bit of a jerk at times, but he’s still full of heart, spunk, curiosity, and all those qualities that make children simultaneously incredibly adorable and terribly annoying.

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When my niece was born, I decided that I wanted to do something original, creative, and personal for her each year for Christmas. Since she was living overseas, and I knew I might only get to see her (and therefore to share a book with her) a few times a year at best, I struck on the idea of doing an audio CD of me reading some of my favorite children’s stories to her. Thus: Storytime.

In 2006, for my third CD, I had a couple realizations—first, that there are only so many kids books I consider “favorites”, and second, that my niece, being a girl, would be more interested in “girl” stories than the “boy” stories I used to read. So, I would have to branch out into unfamiliar, and at times, uncomfortable territory. Case in point, our first track from 2006.

I picked (at my wife’s prompting, I’m sure) because it’s a Christmas story, and because girls love Strawberry Shortcake.

In this story, a diminutive, passive-aggressive redhead with a speech impediment is making plans for a big Christmas party. It seems, however, that all her friends are “too busy” to arrive in time to help with the last of the setup, so Shortcake heads out to visit each of them with a giant guilt trip. Finally, by the time she gets home, all her friends have arrived for the party, but since she’s been out wandering the streets instead of getting ready, her friends have to help her finish up anyway.

Ah, and one other thing about the 2006 CD—I realized that with my niece turning 3 years old, it was time for me to stop reading to her, and start reading with her. This resulted in me choosing books that she might be able to follow along in as I read, or to read on her own. Most of the other stories on this CD fit this criteria as well, though most are also better than this one.

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is a cute little story about a stuffed, toy rabbit who longs to be “real.” Initially of little interest to his owner, or to the other toys with whom he is thrown together, eventually the rabbit becomes the much-loved favorite of the boy. After the boy contracts an illness which requires the purging of those belongings he keeps closest to him, the rabbit is thrown out of the house, to be incinerated. Filled with love for the boy, and sadness at their separation, the rabbit’s single tear summons the “toy fairy,” who completes his transformation and deposits him in the forest among the other real rabbits.

The 2005 CD may’ve been shorter, but that was ok ’cause it had this story on it. Also, I managed to sneak Spidey into the CD jacket, which was fun.

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This classic story includes references which modern kids will likely never be exposed to elsewhere—like actual shutters, kerchief and caps as sleepwear, and sugarplums. Of course, this story also is one of the primary introductions for children to Santa’s peculiar attributes, and also has an easy to memorize roster of Santa’s pre-Rudolph reindeer.

There are many stories and songs about Santa and his reindeer, but this is one of the absolute fundamental texts of Santology.

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The first track I’d like to feature from this CD is the short—but very cute—, by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram.

This story documents a peculiar exchange between a narcissistic elder bunny and an insecure but effusive younger bunny who share a vague and unhealthily competitive relationship, and who apparently belong to a cult which has stripped them of their names and only allows them to be referenced by the color of their fur.

As the story progresses, the junior bunny attempts to elucidate the magnitude of his devotion to the elder bunny, but with each new platitude, the elder bunny is compelled to explain that his devotion to the younger bunny is actually the greater. He accomplishes this through various means, including physical feats of strength and simple size-related intimidation techniques. In the end, the elder bunny—not content to allow the youngster even the smallest victory—must get in the last word, even as his companion loses consciousness. One imagines the elder bunny smiling to himself with smug satisfaction, before dropping off to a fitful, horror-filled sleep.

Too much?

[UPDATE: 1 hour after this post launched, I realized I’d neglected to include the audio. Whoops.]

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The reader is drawn along on the patient’s perambulatory adventure, and is given the opportunity to observe and occasionally participate in a re-enactment of his mad mimicry. Graciously, Mr. Brown’s repertoire of sounds is somewhat limited, and does not venture into the mechanical or electronic, so the book remains relatively short. The book closes with a review section, which one imagines might be an abstract representation of the troubled man’s unconscious mind.

Seriously though, Mr. Brown Can Moo is a great little book that smaller children simply love. It is especially fun when, once they’ve been through the book about 20 times (a day, for six straight months) and know pretty much what to expect, the reader begins to mix up the animals and their sounds. Toddlers love making animal noises, and they squeal with delight (or homicidal rage) when one presents the obviously ludicrous idea that a dog might say “quack.”

This is the last track off the original 2004 Christmas CD. Next week, 2005!

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This and the final track on the 2004 CD were a bit of a concession, in that this isn’t necessarily one of my favorite stories. I think I felt that three stories wasn’t quite enough, so I picked the last two to fill out the list a bit. I do like this story, however, and there is just something fun about saying “Flopsy, Mopsy.”

Enjoy the reading.

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The story involves a gruff, grumpy presumably older person. Set in his ways, and flush with life experience, he knows what he likes, and—more importantly for this story—what he doesn’t like. This gentleman, from the outset of the story is beset by a pestering, annoying interloper who insists on shoving the same plateful of foul looking food in his face for the next several hours (or perhaps days). Despite our protagonist’s gruff—but polite—rebuffs of the pushy peddler, he is continuously harrassed with ham.

In the end, after being stalked, run over by a car, kidnapped against his will onto the roof of a speeding train, and finally crash landed onto a boat which is utterly destroyed, our protagonist gives into the classic “how do you know you don’t like them if you won’t try them” ploy. When he does try them, and realizes that they haven’t gone rancid yet and are actually palatable, he quickly scarfs down the entire plate so that that annoying and mentally unstable Sam character can’t even have a bite. Revenge is a dish best borrowed full and returned empty.

The fun aspect of this recording, which I barely remembered but was pleasantly surprised to rediscover, is that my wife pitched in as the voice of Sam-I-am. Of course, we recorded it together, sharing the same cheap’o microphone, so there are a few instances where you can just about catch us cracking each other up. As with most of this stuff, I cleaned up as much as I could, as I didn’t want extra noises to distract from and possibly muddy the voices. This was a fun read, and I’d love to have done more with Sara, but her schedule, and the fact that I always seem to be recording these at the last possible moments, has since precluded her involvement. More’s the pity.

We hope you enjoy this entertaining and spirited reading of an entertaining and spirited book.

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In this reading, you get a bit of my somewhat cursory attempts at different character voices, while the quality reflects the low fidelity of the equipment used. All-in-all, it’s a fun read, and, I hope, a fun listen.

My audio items should appear as a podcast within the regular subscription feed, but you may subscribe to the “Podcast Only” feed if you prefer.

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