Someone asked in the comments, and even if they hadn’t, I had planned on telling you.  We listened to five books, of varying lengths, on our 4500-mile drive.

O Jerusalem – with 22 CDs, my kids starting rebelling on this one. I didn’t make them listen to it, but put the audio only through the front speakers, but it still tended to bother them when they were trying to read or do something else. I read this book when I was 18 and living in Jerusalem for the first time. I liked it then, but now I understand the city and history so much better and my appreciation was heightened immensely. I love good book readers too, and Theodore Bikel never grew old throughout the 650-page book. One mistake : I’ve said many times in recommending this book that it is historical fiction, with an emphasis on the historical. In fact, this is a work of history. I may have had that impression because it is so readable, complete with reconstructed conversations. But it is based on voluminous research. I loved it.  (Only $8 on CD at Amazon)

Luke and Acts – I’ve recommended listening to the Bible many times in my head, but I’m not sure how often I’ve said it here. I highly recommend that in addition to reading the Bible, you listen to it. Better yet, listen to large sections at a time.

Anne of Green Gables – over the last year, I’ve had opportunity to listen to a number of the productions of Focus on the Family Radio Theatre. Most are excellent, this one included. I’ve seen these movies, but had not read the books. Excellent story and well produced.

Call of the Wild – As with the one above, I had this listed as a “family” book that we could all listen to. Our boys liked Anne, but this one was pretty much over their heads. Kelli and I really enjoyed it. Jack London knows how to make a dog come alive.

The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia #7) – we listened to the last of the series on our first day. We greatly enjoyed the series, but I think this may have been our least favorite. I know that others consider this book the best, so perhaps it was the audio production, our frames of mind, or the length of time (4 months) since we heard the previous ones.

Audio CD – I only have one to note and that doesn’t warrant a separate post:

To Be Like Jesus – this is the latest CD from Sovereign Grace Music. Again I am persuaded that “kids CDs” are for parents too. One notable feature of this CD: it doesn’t pretend that children are believers and thus have them sing things that are not necessarily true.

Reading book – I only have one I want to comment on here, so again it goes here or nowhere:

The Da Vinci Code – I was mostly clueless about this book, having missed all of the commotion in the States when it came out. Unwilling to contribute to authors of works such as this, I waited until I found it at a garage sale. I read it because I thought it would help me understand the issues better, AND I heard it was an interesting read. The book certainly was engaging; my surprise was just how little the author cared about accuracy. Because I thought this was perceived as a dangerous book that could mislead people, I had the mistaken assumption that it was carefully researched. It is not. That doesn’t mean that it hasn’t/won’t mislead others, but it can easily be refuted (and likely has been). Next I ‘ll be keeping my eyes open at garage sales for The Shack.

The kids at Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs