This one was very fun.  It just happened that we received this package from Maverick Books right before leaving town to go on a trip.  Since my kids are all big audio fans they immediately ripped open the Tales and Tunes from Hank, a CD of story excerpts from 10 books plus 9 original songs from Hank the Cowdog.  My 8-year-old son was enraptured by the tales from Hank the Cowdog and his goofy sidekick, Drover.  These tales from the ranch were delightfully entertaining and they especially loved the songs.  Drover is now a common word in our house.  , and 6-year-old son wants to play the CD every night at bedtime.  I thought the author, John Erickson, did a fabulous job recording this and injecting boyish humor into the production.  My 11-year-old daughter was annoyed that the CD was only excerpts, since of course, she “must know the whole story RIGHT NOW!”

To my shocking surprise, the slow reader in our family did not even hesitate picking up the accompanying Hank the Cowdog book called “The Case of the One-Eyed Killer Stud Horse,” and began to read.  This is an earth shaking event, so I am sold on the effectiveness of introducing audio stories to gain interest into reading the stories.  Priced at only $4.24 for paperback, this is a no-brainer.

The set also included a board game called “Tornado” with audio tape (only $12.99!).  It is sad, I know, but I have to admit I don’t actually own a tape player, so we have not yet listened to the tape.  We did, however, dive into “Tornado” with gusto.  The basic premise of the game is almost identical to the game “Sorry,” with some quirky alterations.  You take turns with a spinner (and I have to interject that the spinner always seemed to stop on “3″ and was sometimes difficult to turn for the smaller kids)  and if you spin a 1 or a 6 you can move your players.  This was funny until my daughter still had not had a turn after 24 tries on the spinner.  We finally pulled out a dice and attempted that – with no success.  She still never rolled a 1 or a 6 (much to the hysterical laughter of the boys, of course).  The game was fun but we never did finish.  Personally, I think next time we will tweak the rules a little to make the game a little more fast paced since my 6-year-old’s attention span is 2.5 seconds.  Otherwise, very nicely done.  The game board even folds up into a nice travel case, which was great for our trip.

My boys have already requested more CD’s, and for the price, it is a great buy!  Although my daughter enjoyed the materials, I have to give this an A+ mainly for my boys.

What I like:

• Great, boyish humor (did I mention I laughed hysterically at the story about Sally May, until my kids thought I was losing it?)
• Silly, catchy songs
• Hours of clean, fun entertainment

What I did not like:

• Some of the language may be offensive to some, such as “dumb” and “stupid” and so on.  All in all, I think my kids can handle the name calling, realizing it stays on the ranch between animals and does not give them license to use the same language with each other.