Finding a cd player with a tape deck wasn't easy, but we have a good one that will hopefully last a long time. I've instructed the kids on how to use it properly, so they can listen to their books independently (KID 2 struggles with getting the tapes into the deck, but she's getting better).
We've been slowly adding to our listening library as the kids' birthdays roll around, and sometimes new books come with a "bonus" CD recording. Our large board book copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar came with a CD recording of the book read by Eric Carle himself. That one is pretty cool! Gwyneth Paltrow did the recording of Brown Bear, Brown Bear; and James Earl Jones recorded the most recent addition to our library, The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey.
But with the advent of the CD, books on tape are not as easy to find. Most are on CD, which is great for listening in the car, but when you let your kids handle their own audio books, CD's get damaged VERY easily. So, I don't know how legal it is, but I've just finished ripping our entire CD audio book collection onto the computer. This way we can burn a new copy if (WHEN) their CDs get scratched and won't play anymore. I feel much better about letting them handle their own books on CD now that we have a way to replace them without having to repurchase the recordings.
The listening library in no way replaces our reading time together, but in a house with no TV, it's nice to have things they can fill their time with independently and still have the benefit of reading!
