Traveling moms tend to be polarized on the topic of in-car DVD systems: some think that looking out the window and talking builds character, others believe that car time is down time.

Children’s audiobooks are less controversial.  When you find a good one, the miles just seem to fly by for everyone.

Your local library is a great source for free audiobooks, but you can also buy them on amazon.com (or directly from the publishers), download them from audible.com (or from the iTunes store, though their selection is limited), and even swap them at www.paperbackswap.com.

Here are ten of my family’s favorites to get you started:

1. Brown Bear and Friends (ages 2-5)

I know what you’re thinking: this book doesn’t even really have a plot!  Bear with me though, this is the very, very shallow end of the audiobook pool and it’s where your kids should start.  You’ve got to crawl before you can walk, after all.   Academy Award winner (and mom) Gwyneth Paltrow does voices for all the different characters, and there is fun background music too.  At just an hour long, it’s perfect for the youngest listeners.  The stories are read in English and in Spanish, for your bilingual pleasure.

2. Love You Forever, the Best of Robert Munsch (ages 3-adult)

The gentle, silly repetition in these stories are a delight for all ages.  Robert Munsch’s characters are plucky, independent, and confident.  Very young children will be happy to listen to this one over and over.  Highlights include the Paperbag Princess (who rescues her shallow boyfriend, then dumps him when he criticizes her dirty clothes and messy hair) and Stephanie’s Ponytail (all about a girl who keeps changing her look when others copy it).

3. Animal Tales (ages: 3-adult)

Jim Weiss has a wonderfully soothing voice that’s a pleasure to listen to.  Many of his stories are geared for older children, but this one is perfect for first time listeners.  His interpretations of these classic tales steer clear of scary elements, and have gentle morals.  Anyone who can make the Tortoise and the Hare interesting to grown-ups is obviously a major talent.

4. The Hank the Cowdog series (ages: 4-adult)

Before he was an award-winning author and performer, John Erickson was a west Texas cowboy and ranch manager.  Hank, the star of his The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog series, is a self-aggrandizing ranch dog who thinks of himself as “the head of ranch security.”  Hank’s misadventures, dim sidekicks, and wry tone will have your entire family laughing all the way to your destination.

5. Flat Stanley Audio Collection (ages 4-adult)

The Flat Stanley stories are read by the incomparable Daniel Pinkwater (the author of The Hoboken Chicken Emergency and a children’s literature heavyweight in his own right).  Pinkwater sounds sort of like Dustin Hoffman with a bad head cold, which is inexplicably wonderful.  Flat Stanley’s parents’ matter of fact attitude when they’re son loses his third dimension, goes to space, and meets the President is as funny as the stories themselves.

6. Blah Blah Blah (ages 5-adult)

The best children’s authors are the ones who never, you know, quite grew up themselves.  Bill Harley is just such an author (and I mean that as a very high compliment).  He is still very much in touch with his fear of monsters, sibling rivalry, and disdain for adult logic.  We’ve listened to this one at least 15 times so far, and “Joey, Chloe and the Swamp Monsters” holds a special place in our hearts.

7. The Giants and the Joneses (ages 5-adult)

From the acclaimed author of such family favorites as The Gruffalo and The Snail and the Whale, comes a Giant story with a twist.  Told partly in Groilish (the language of the giants), this story features a “bimplestonk” (beanstalk), “iggly plops” (little people), a “spratchkin” (kitten), and Jumbeelia (the giant girl who holds the fate of the Joneses in her oversized hands).  Reassure very young children that the sheep that seems to have died early in the story has only fainted and will be just fine.

8. The City under the Back Steps (ages: 6-adult)

If you had told me that I would listen in rapt fascination to a story about ants for six hours, I would have been more than a little dubious.  But I did.  Craig and Jill (who aren’t very nice to ants) suddenly shrink and find themselves living under their back steps.  Between the dramatic story and the stranger-than-fiction scientific information about life in an anthill, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.  So were my kids.

9. The Harry Potter series (ages: 9-adult)

We’ve rated this one 9 and up, but the first book (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) is probably okay for children as young as 7.  Use your own judgment.  The best thing about these stories is that they are really, really, really long.  So if you’re driving from San Francisco to LA or New York to Florida, these are perfect.  Don’t worry if your kids have already read them, they’re just as good the second time around.

10. Evermore (ages: 12-adult)

We know you’re sick of handsome immortals, but trust us: your tweens and teens aren’t.  You might be able to tempt them into turning off their iPods and listening as a family if you put on this story.  A beautiful outcast is befriended by a strange (and strangely perfect) boy at her new school.  Sound familiar?  Of course it does.  Go with it, it’s fun.

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