Encouraging Audiobooks

Audiobook Appreciation Month!

If you haven't discovered the joy of listening to a book, you are missing out!

Ever get irritated with ads on the radio having to search out stations on a trip?  Listen to a book on CD and you don't have to worry about it!

Enjoy bits of a story during your work commute.

Entertain yourself while doing housework.

Don't restrict your view of "reading" to just 15 minutes a night before you go to bed.

OK, lecture over (kind of).

So, I have the distinct pleasure of being one of the reference librarians in charge of the displays at the Alamogordo Public Library.  We have been having a good time putting together some collection focal points.  Since I can't be in the classroom right now, I try to consider some of these displays my "one-shot" educational stops.

This  month is Audiobook Appreciation month and we wanted to spread the word about the awesomeness of "talking books". But how in the world were we going to be able to do that?

Audiobooks come in different formats; CDs, MP3 disks, digital downloads and Playaways.

My brain child was to make a giant Playaway and headphones to display. So it would look like a giant-sized version of this:

A Playaway is a self-contained book; essentially a simple MP3 player with just the book loaded on it.  Easy to use and lighweight! 

The Playaway itself was easy; just cut a Xerox paper box at an angle and glue on the lid; paint it and add printed-out buttons and a book cover.

The thing that gave me the most difficulty was constructing giant headphones.  I checked Google and Pinterest and couldn't find anything so I struck out on my own.  I ended up using Styrofoam plates and bowls, crepe paper, bendable steel wire and felt.  Plus a lot of glue! So, here is my series of steps for making giant headphones to go with our big Playaway.

Here are most of the supplies; not pictured is the paint and craft glue and felt. I used two big plates, one small plate and a bowl for each side of the headphones.

Here I'm poking holes for the speaker portion of the headphones and painting the pieces. After they were dry, I glued a small hole-poked plate to the inside of a large plate for each side.

For the cushioned area, I glued strips of crepe paper together and then glued them to the perimeter of the plate.

I made a wire frame for the over-the-head part and wrapped it with felt. Then I glued it between the two large plates. and flipped the rest of the crepe paper over the edges and glued on the bowl.

I found an old, defunct set of earbuds and cut the wire free to glue to the headphones to lead to the Playaway.

Voila!  Giant headphones and a Playaway to encourage audiobook listening/reading. Give it a try!

Here I am showing you the size :)