Don’t you just love an action story? Do you and your kids love read-alouds or great family movies? Have you thought about the days when the family listened together around the radio? I know we love a good story – storytelling and read-alouds are a great tradition in our house. We recently had the opportunity to review Under Drake’s Flag by Heirloom Audio Productions and what a treat it was!
Under Drakes Flag is a 2 hour audio story based on a G.A Henry novel. The audio CD has the feel of an old radio program with all the extras that today’s recording can bring it. With the CD set you get 2 CDS and a study guide. We also received a PDF download for a longer Study Guide. The story was capitavting, stirring the imagination and developing character all at the same time. The true, underlying character development were interwoven within the exciting and exhilerating story of Sir Francis Drake, an English sea captiain in the 1500’s who was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe.
The professional quality of the sound effects and engaging professional voice actors made the production captivating and entertaining to the children as well as the adults. The producer of Under Drake’s Flag is John Fomof, the former Writer/Director of Adventures in Odessey and there is definiately some of that feel to the production. Even if you have enjoyed G.A. Henty books in the past, the audio production will leave you excited and wanting for more; I know it did that for us.My daughter loved the story and was engaged from the beginning. My 4 year old wiggly son was even engaged and excited for the story. Of course, what boy doesn’t love a story with shark attacks, sea battles and shipwrecks. However, in simplicity, it is the story of a boy becoming a man though life events, adventures, and character development. The boy, Ned, grows into a man through the guideance of Captian Drake. Ned is an admirable character that goes through some hard times and comes out on the other side a man that we would all be proud know.
My kids loved the recording. As you listen you can picture the action and the characters. Something I love about books as that you can form your own pictures in your mind of what the characters and scences look like. This is something that television and movies do for you. However, in the case of the audio production like this, you can here and listen to the story and get sound effects and excitement and intonation and all that wonderful stuff that can engage you into the story but, at the same time, it leaves room for the imagination to fill in the gaps just like the book. The kids loved it and so did I!The study guide is devided into 3 sectiosn for each chapter of the book. The Listening Well section asks question to help with retention of the story line. The Thinking Further section helps the child challenge themslves to understand the story and why things happened and what character is being developed. And the Defining Words section helps the child work on his or her vocabulary,which is always a good skill to work on when reading (or listening to) a book. Additionally, there are Bible studies at the end of the study guide to help with continued character development. There is also a resource section to help you if you want to delve further into something covered in the study guide
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