A Story Before Bed

Since having children I have been trying to find away that they can stay in touch with grandparents and other family members that live far away. Skype is great, but with time zone differences it often is difficult to get together at time that works for both parties.
I read an article several months ago in one of our library journals about websites that offered digital books for children that could be recorded, or read while web-chatting. I was able to narrow it down to 2 sites that I really liked. The first was Readeo and the second was A Story Before Bed.
Readeo enables what they call "book chatting". In essence it is just like Skype with a virtual book for both parties to look at and flip threw. One person needed to get a subscription and pay the monthly fee, but then could add as many guest accounts as you wanted. The member had access to all books to read to the guest members. Also, 2 guest members could have a book chat, but only certain books were available for that. When I first started looking Readeo was cheaper and had more books.

A Story Before Bed allows a member to go online and record themselves reading a virtual book. As long as you gave your account name and password to other family members they could go on and record books. Once you sign on you can see all the books that have been recorded. You can record the same books as many times as you want and you get to keep it even after your membership is over. This site has really been focusing on military members that are serving away from their families and getting them free access. How cool is that?!? They have really increased the number of books and lowered their price.

In the end the ability for all parties to record and watch at their convenience won over. And the final kickers, they had a huge sale a Christmas. So we now have a 2 year unlimited membership. YAY! If you would like to read a story or watch some recordings please send me an email and I will give you the account info.