CD of toddler songs/talking books

[geranium]

I am tired of hearing the CDs we have of children's songs played over and over again. Therefore, as a Christmas present to me, I would like to get ds a new CD. This could be either new children's songs (but most compilations seem to have roughly the same things on them) or, perhaps better, a talking book. This cunning plan would also, hopefully, give me some quiet time while ds sits in rapt appreciation of the story being read out on the CD.

Can anyone recommend a good CD with either some fairy stories or an absorbing children's story for a 2 year old? He's not yet into Thomas or Balamory or anything like that so ideally story would be brand neutral as it were.

Any ideas of what has worked for your children?

We bought 'Rumble in the Jungle' read by Hugh Laurie for DS when he was 3 and he loved it (still does). Short poems about animals with a book to follow (though your DS is a bit too young for this I expect)and great background music. There are others in the series - Commotion in the Ocean is one.

The gruffalo is gripping listening for kids.

DD (2 1/2) adores a tape we have of winnie the pooh stories and they're not too awful to listen to!

I know you didn't want Thomas/Balamory, but just to say that ELC has a great Postman Pat one.

Thanks. I might try Rumble in the Jungle first off (doesn't matter if he is a bit young. This is so I can retain my sanity while feeling I'm doing some positive parenting ). Winnie the Pooh sounds nice - do you recommend anyone in particular to read it? We tend to read the Gruffalo to ds but he might welcome a change of voice! Also, will have a look at Postman Pat. I don't mind him so much and ds likes waving to our postman and collecting the post so might be quite interested. The only one I'm not keen on is Thomas because they seem to have churned out some really dreadful books just to make money.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. I'll check them out.

Grrrr, Rumble in the Jungle is only on cassette.

I was looking for the same sort of thing, and found figety fish with a CD of it being read by Phil Scoffield I think, so they can follow the book too. But the reading was so slow I got bored listening.

I did spot a couple of books in a local shop (books warehouse I think) that have the reading part integral to the book, so sounds like the book is reading itself. The reading was faster, but it was just traditional fairy stories, Jack and the bean stalk etc, and if you turned the page the story started from that page even it hadn't finished the previous page.

Hope this makes sense.

h x

Ohh just spotted that they do Rumble in the jungle on tape, we have the books. They are written by the chap that does Purple Ronnie. another nice one is Giraffes can't dance.

Will have to go looking

H x

check out your library - I get new ones each week for my DD and DS. DS loves Paddington Bear, Tweenies, Christmas Carols (!) and Spot but he's 4. They do have lots of toddler ones though. Might be worth a test run for free before you buy.

Majorca - any more details on that? Can't find the CD on Amazon with that title. Where did you buy it? I love mud, mud and so would ds I think.

We've got 2 CD's Puffin book of 5 minute stories each CD had about 8 or so stories on some are a little odd but DS finds them very absorbing great for car journeys.