About Rick

My Name is Rick Clarke. I live in the UK, and although I don’t have kids of my own yet, I come from a very large family and have 18 Nieces and Nephews, and 18 Great Nieces and Nephews!

That's 36 in total!

I know and understand about the importance of children’s stories and the role they play in helping to fire the imagination and inspire creativity.

Imaginations must be allowed to run free!

Call me old-fashioned, but it is my belief that a child’s imagination is a wonderful thing, and should be nurtured and given the opportunity to run free at every opportunity.

From an inspired imagination comes great creativity and ideas that provide a sense of freedom and wonder. These are essential ingredients, vital to a child's well being and balanced development.

All this can come from engaging with children’s stories either written or as children’s audio books, where it is the mind, and not some elecronic screen, that is required to see the pictures!

TV and Video is killing our kids’ ability to imagine!

I believe that as TV and video games entwine their way into our lives so completely, entire generations of children are now loosing their ability to use their imaginations fully. With everything shown to them on the screen in full technicolor, they no longer have to imagine anything, or ‘fill in the gaps’ with their own minds.

"I’m Bored!" - The universal measuring stick of imagination

An unexercised imagination, is a limited imagination, and kid’s with limited imaginations get bored easily.

I personally think that as a result of TV and video, we are now creating whole generations of unimaginative, and uninspired people with only limited creativity.  Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who grew up before the days of having a TV in every home, how often they got bored.

I believe it is more important now, than at any time in our history, to undo this damage by encouraging and pushing our kids to read and listen to great and inspiring stories, either written or as children’s audio books, and to engage fully with their imaginations.  It will help them as people to go the extra mile and be all that they can be, to think outside of the box, and not become a slave to a limited imagination.

Reading to your kids.

Ok, I understand, getting your kids to engage with literature is not necessarily an easy feat. You might be lucky and have a book worm! But more often than not, given the choice, the appeal of the TV, or PC, where everything is presented to them and no effort is required on thier part, is going to win the day.

That’s why reading to your kids is so important, epecially these days.

If you don’t already do it regularly, then I implore you! Get into the habit of reading to your kids (at the very least 3-4 times a week). They will thank you for it, and be better people for it.

My Audio recordings

I hope my children’s audio books will be there to help you out on those (hopefully rare) occasions when reading to your child, for whatever reason is not possible.

I hope you enjoy the recordings, as much as I enjoy creating them, and I welcome any and all feedback (good or bad), and will consider any ideas you may have to broaden the usefulness of my website.