Several months ago, I discovered the pleasure of audiobooks. What a relief after staring at book type and computer screens all day. Tapes became a great way for me to tune out the bad grocery store music and access patience when waiting in any kind of line. I'd even accompany my children to the mall if I could sit on a bench and hear a tape. Pairing mystery Audiobooks with my roller blading made my exercising more regular.

I hadn't considered the great application of story on tape for children until, I interviewed Christine Loomis, a Family Travel editor first who's traveled with her own children for thirteen years.

"I always tell anyone who's going on a driving vacation with their kids," Loomis told me, " to get every child his own wakman because it gives them psychological privacy. They don't have to hear anyone else talk, interact with anyone and when you need some private time on a long car trip, you can't go into another room."

We'd listened to lots of tapes when my children were small, but novels on tape were a whole new listening experience. Before we took off for our last driving trip, I took my children to the library. In the adult section, my twelve year old son scored My Life, by Magic Johnson, read by Morgan Freeman and put on reserve a tape of Robert O'Brien's Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of NIMH because he'd only read part at school and wanted to know the ending. My daughter discovered the humor of Louis Sacher's Sideway Stories from Wayside School and Betsy Byar's hysterical Not-Just-Anybody Family. Children's book authors like E.B. White, Roald Dahl, Madeline L'Engle and Judy Blume read their own work and there are books read by artists like Claire Blume and Glenn Close. There's everything from classics like Old Yeller and Little Women to newer classics like Shiloh by Phylis Naylor.

Novels I can't entice my children into reading get a good hearing on a long car trip. We might look a little strange, speeding down the highway, Wakmans perched on all of our heads, but the volume and frequency of fights and frustrations have been turned way down.