Z and I developed this story, "The Two Bears and the Carousel," over a six-month period when she was three. I reshaped and modified the plot as I gauged her interest and understanding with each telling, working to find the words and actions that would resonate the most with emerging abilities as a listener. Finally, we reached the point where she was satisfied with it, and from that point on she made me tell it to her again and again, refusing to let me change it anymore.

For this audio recording, Bethany Wallace, my sister, narrated; Ken McNichols, my father, composed and performed music and some sound effects; my brother, Joshua, who is a reporter and producer at Seattle's public radio station, recorded and mixed the audio, and contributed music and sound effects as well. The illustration above is by Jenni's brother, Vincent Rogers. The whole experience inspired us to produce more stories, which we'll release on Z Recommends in the coming months.

The Two Bears and the Carousel

You can listen to the file using the little "play" button above, or right-click on the story title to "Save As" and download the mp3 file. When we post our second story next month, we'll find a permanent home for them somewhere on the ZRecs Network.

This file is hereby released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license. You are welcome to download, share, and remix it as you like, provided you credit this original work, cite ZRecs.com as its creator, do not distribute it or derivative works for profit, and link to it so others can find it at the source.