All About Wonderbooks

Are you familiar with Wonderbooks?

I discovered them a few years ago in my library and since then the collection has just kept growing – they’ve been a terrific addition to our family reading life!

If you’re new to Wonderbook, it’s a hardcover picture book or early reader with a little audiobook player built right into the front cover. Press play and it’ll read aloud to you while you turn the pages (complete with the little page-turn ding!).

Basically, it’s an updated version of the “turn the page” read alongs, but you don’t have to worry about losing the cassette or scratching the CD.

A Wonderbook has a power button, play/pause, forward/back, volume control, speaker, and a headphone port, so your child can listen to them without everyone else having to listen to them too, which is nice when you’re in a small space or on a trip together.

Vox Book is another brand of audio-enabled book like Wonderbook – our library has books from both brands and they are essentially the same.

Here are answers to a few of the frequently asked questions about Wonderbook or Vox Book:

All About Wonderbooks and Vox Books

How can I listen to Wonderbook / Vox Book?
There is a volume controlled speaker attached to the book, but there is also a headphone jack for a silent reading option.

Are Wonderbook / Vox Books just for younger kids?
No! Wonderbook and Vox Books come in a large variety of titles including picture books, leveled readers, early chapter books, chapter books, nonfiction books, bilingual books. There are great titles for the youngest readers, but fantastic chapter books for older readers as well. Check what your library has and if they only have ones for younger readers, let them know you’d love to see options for older readers as well!

What is a good age to start Wonderbook / Vox Books?
Wonderbook or Vox Books can be started as young as 2 or 3, depending on your child. They may need a little help in the beginning understanding all the buttons, but they will pick up the general idea pretty quickly! Check one out from your library and see how they do!

How long will a Wonderbook or Vox Book play? 
They come with a LOT of battery life – the Vox will play up to 150 repetitions of the book, while a Wonderbook has about 16-20 hours of battery life.

How do you charge a Wonderbook / Vox book?
The good news is that they come fully charged from library, so you’ll probably never have to do a thing, but both Wonderbooks and Vox books have micro-USB ports if further charging is needed. The Wonderbook will start flashing red if there is less than an hour left of the battery life and show a solid green light if it’s fully charged.

How do I know if my library has them?
Some libraries have them in a special collection (this is what my library does) and some shelve them with the rest of the regular collection. Your best bet is to ask your librarian if they have them and have them show you where to find them. Some libraries limit how many you can check out – when our library started adding a Wonderbook collection, you could only check out two at a time. Now that limit is gone.

When/ how do you use Wonderbooks?
My younger girls usually listen to them during quiet time or when they’re in bed at night with no one to read to them.

How do Wonderbooks / Vox Books compare to Playaway audiobooks?
Wonderbooks is actually a Playaway brand! A Playaway is a pre-loaded audiobook device (think old walkman/cassette player). You plug a set of headphones in / or plug into a car aux and listen – no phone or tablet or wifi required!  The beautiful thing about Playaway is the portability and ease and they make audiobooks for all ages, toddlers to adults!

Any other questions about Wonderbook or Vox Books or other read along books? I’d love to help – leave your questions in the comments!

 

if you liked this post about read along books like wonderbook, you might also like these other posts:

• My Favorite Kids Headphones
• How to Help Your Child Choose Appropriate Books
• All about the Yoto Player

Photos by Heather Mildenstein