Adventures In Odyssey; Take It From The Top

I remember listening to Adventures in Odyssey with my oldest kids when they were little.  We would gather around the radio at a certain time every night to catch up with Whit and the gang.  There's something that reading, reading aloud, and audio books brings to the table that movies don't quite catch (although I enjoy movies as well!).  I loved that our imaginations were put to use while we envisioned the story.

Take It From The Top is the 51st album of Adventure in Odyssey!  Excited about listening to an old favorite with my younger kids, I discovered that they do stand the test of time.  We listened to several episodes (the entire album is 5 hours of stories!) while cleaning out closets this afternoon.  It was so wonderful to jump back into Odyssey and find my old favorite characters and be able to share them once again with my children.  For some reason, we hadn't listened to these much with my youngest children and I was delighted to find that they enjoyed them as well.  In fact, they asked to listen to more even once we had finished the closet cleaning.

These are Christian stories that do have a message but don't typically come across as preachy.  There is a theme to each story, but they do a pretty good job and communicating their message through the story itself.  For instance, one story found a character over-committing herself.  She signed up for guitar lessons, accepted a role in a play, and promised to perform at her grandmother's birthday party.  Soon she was missing lessons, forgetting lines, and double booking herself.  When she lost the role in the play due to a scheduling conflict, she bemoaned her flakiness and inability to commit to anything.  Her friends came along side her and helped her learn her song for her grandmother's party, encouraging her that she could finish what she started, she just needed to be wise in choosing how many things she could do at once. It's obvious why this story stuck with me (Ha!), but it was a story my children enjoyed whether they could relate to it or not.  They simply enjoyed the characters, the acting, and the storyline. 

Perhaps you're like me and are familiar with Adventures in Odyssey but haven't visited Whit and Connie in awhile, perhaps this is brand new to you.  Either way, this is another product I'd recommend.  Especially for closet cleaning or car trips.  ;-)

Adventures in Odyssey is available from Tyndale Publishers and may be found at your favorite online or local bookstore.

*Disclosure: This album was provided via Tyndale, for review purposes.*