There are many fantastic options for audiobooks for kindergartens, whether you’re taking a lengthy family road trip or you want to present some at home. What are the top children’s audiobooks, however? How do you sort them all out? I took care of the work for you, so don’t worry! I’ve chosen the top audiobooks for kindergartners featuring classic and modern children’s literature renditions.
Remember that your local library is a terrific place to get free audiobooks for kids, especially recent releases! On the several websites that provide free audiobooks, you can also get free audiobooks for kindergartens, particularly classics—in other words, older novels that are in the public domain and not protected by copyright.
Table of Contents
The Best Audiobooks for Kindergartens
GHOST BY JASON REYNOLDS
Castle Crenshaw, a 13-year-old urban Black boy known as “Ghost,” stumbles into making a track team in this inspirational story. Guy Lockhart, a supremely accomplished audiobook actor, does a fantastic job portraying all the numerous voices. This story is more than a sports tale, a delicate, real look at a youngster coping with tragedy and attempting to evade the debilitating effects of prejudice and poverty.
ONE CRAZY SUMMER BY RITA WILLIAMS-GARCIA
One Crazy Summer follows the three Gaither sisters as they travel to see their mother, who abandoned them during the summer of 1968 and accidentally got engaged in the Black Panther movement. The narration is provided by 11-year-old Delphine, portrayed by voice actress Sisi Aisha Johnson, who is the stereotypically responsible oldest child.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON BY CRESSIDA COWELL
It’s tough to avoid becoming fascinated when David Tennant reads the How to Train Your Dragon books. He beautifully narrates “the exploits and escapades of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III as he strives to pass the key initiation test of his Viking clan by capturing and trying to train a dragon” in a stunning Scottish accent. He enjoys reading books and adding his sense of humor to them.
BETTER NATE THAN EVER BY TIM FEDERLE
Tim Federle is qualified for the job even though author-narrated audiobooks for kindergartners can be monotonous because he describes himself as a “grown-up theatre kid” presenting the tale of a theatre kid. A small-town lad named Nate Foster dreams of appearing in a Broadway production, so he and his best friend Libby arrange a quick getaway to New York City.
REDWALL BY BRIAN JACQUES
The whole ensemble audiobooks for kindergartners expertly tells the incredible story of Redwall, with voice actors portraying the dialects of their assigned characters and Brian Jacques delivering the narrative. It’s an incredible way to take in the story of Matthias, a young mouse who should face his fears to defend his friends at Redwall Abbey from the fearsome Cluny the Scourge, the evilest rat in history.
THE GRAVEYARD BOOK BY NEIL GAIMAN
The well-known tale of Nobody Owens, a.k.a. Bod, raised by ghosts and lives in a graveyard, received the royal audiobook treatment in 2015. This included an entire cast, moody music, sound effects, and a unique behind-the-scenes scoop read by Gaiman. Bod can have adventures in the cemetery, but if he leaves, he runs the chance of being killed by Jack, who has previously slaughtered his family.
SEE YOU IN THE COSMOS BY JACK CHENG
A cast of five voice actors, including Kivlighan de Montebello as the main narrator, has done a great job bringing this narrative of space-obsessed 11-year-old Alex Petroski and his loveable dog Carl Sagan on an episodic adventure to send Alex’s golden iPod into space to life as an audiobook. The ensuing tale is heartwarming, humorous, uplifted, and cheerful.
SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL BY PATRICIA MACLACHLAN
Glenn Close, who played Sarah in the 1991 T.V. adaptation of this masterpiece set in the 1800s, narrates the audiobooks for kindergartners of the well-known story of two children, Anna and Caleb, whose lives are completely altered when their widowed papa wants to advertise for a mail-order bride to come away to live with them on their farm in the U.S. plains.
SAVE ME A SEAT BY SARAH WEEKS AND GITA VARADARAJAN
The two voice actors portraying the primary characters, Josh Hurley as Joe and Vikas Adam as Ravi, bring this dual-perspective story to life. Two boys, Joe and Ravi, believe they have nothing in common. However, they discover that the dominant bully in their department is a shared enemy and that they need to have a friend.
THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY BY LAURA SHOVAN
The novel’s unconventional format—which tells the story through the poetry of 18 students in a grade five class over a particularly eventful year—works well as an audiobook. The Last Fifth Grade at Emerson Elementary tells the daily tales of fifth graders and how the class is adjusting to their school’s impending closure through the voices of seven different voice actors.
ESPERANZA RISING BY PAM MUÑOZ RYAN
Trini Alvarado is the ideal bilingual performer for this historical audiobook for kindergartners with Spanish accents about Mexican-Americans laboring on farms during the Great Depression. Esperanza, the young daughter of affluent landowners who moves to Mexico and becomes a farm laborer, is the novel’s main character. A fantastic novel that addresses several themes (racism, migrant workers, workers’ strikes, class, and sexism) in an exciting and real way.
BROWN GIRL DREAMING BY JACQUELINE WOODSON
The author should always read a memoir; Jacqueline Woodson does a wonderful job with this. This unconventional memoir, in verse, tells the narrative of her life in South Carolina and New York. It’s a unique poetry collection that’s easy to understand, and Woodson’s mellow, carefree voice nicely captures the collection’s dreamy, easy-going tone.
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS-AN AUDIOBOOK BY LEMONY SNICKET
Tim Curry’s reading of Series of Unfortunate Events is a true pleasure; his expressive voice perfectly captures the series’ wry, dark, self-referential comedy. He is particularly terrifying as the evil Count Olaf, a foe of the Baudelaire children who resist him by utilizing books. Curry is more than fine on his own for the remaining volumes. However, The Bad Beginning includes the entire cast (including Curry) rendition with ominous orchestral music and terrific sound effects.
THE HOBBIT BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN
The legendary story of Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit who dared to venture out of the Shire and go off and have adventures across Middle Earth involving dwarves, trolls, dragons, huge spiders, wizards, and more, would be incomplete without mentioning Rob Inglis’s warm, rich narration. Inglis enjoys trying out many voices for Tolkien’s legendary characters.
Conclusion
Most people adore short tale collections when it comes to audiobooks for kindergartners (or even younger; the kids all started expressing interest in audiobooks around 2.5 or 3) because you can remain hearing the stories with the same characters and do not need to switch to a different audiobook every half hour.