Something Musical This Way Comes — Listening with All Your Ears

 

Something Wonderful This Way Comes

12 Blogs to Help You Start Something Wonderful with Hollyhock Books

Blog 2: Something Musical This Way Comes  Listening with All Your Ears

By Sophia Salazar, Editor-in-Chief

There is a difference between hearing and listening.

Hearing is what happens when sound enters your ears—the rumble of a lorry passing, the chatter of birds outside your window, the background hum of a kettle coming to boil. It requires nothing from you. It simply occurs.

Listening is different. Listening is an act of attention. It's what Oliver Hefflewhistle did when the stars overhead rearranged themselves into arithmetic equations and he stopped to wonder. It's what the villagers of Whistlepork do when the flummywisters yodel their yisters from the oak trees. It's what happens when a story lands somewhere deeper than the surface of the mind and takes root.

And with a free audiobook platform now open to all, the question becomes not just what to listen to, but how.

How do we listen in a way that honours the story? How do we help children (and ourselves) move from passive hearing to active, wondering, lingering listening? How do we make the most of a voice in our ears and a world unfolding in our imagination?

This week, we're exploring exactly that—with the help of Oliver, Crumpet, Noddy, Poppy, Fizzwick, Toddy, and all their companions.

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The Gift of the Listening Voice

There is something peculiar and wonderful about hearing a story read aloud. The voice becomes a bridge between the page and the person. The words are no longer just symbols to be decoded—they become sounds, rhythms, breaths, pauses. They become alive.

For children who are still building their reading skills, audiobooks offer access to stories they might not yet be able to navigate alone. They can climb into the luftwaffes with Fizzwick and Toddy, soar over the ocean in "The Flying Scone," and land in a London where pigeons wear bowler hats—all without struggling over every third word.

For adults, audiobooks offer something just as precious: permission to simply receive a story. To close your eyes. To let the words wash over you. To be, for a little while, entirely inside someone else's imagination.

But the real magic begins when listening becomes an activity rather than a passive experience.

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Before You Press Play: Setting the Stage

A story doesn't begin when the narrator starts speaking. It begins when you prepare to receive it.

For Oliver Hefflewhistle:

This is a January story, even if you're listening in July. Before you press play, find something woolly. A blanket. A jumper. A pair of hand-knitted mittens, if you happen to own such things. Oliver knitted his own mittens during "a particularly uneventful winter day," and they accompanied him on his quest. Honor that.

If you can, find a feather—any feather—and place it nearby. It doesn't have to be from a snowbird. It just has to be light enough to float.

Ask your listeners: what would you be brave enough to do for someone you cared about? Would you play music in the cold? Would you wear mittens while doing it?

For Old Crumpet Noggin:

This story demands comfort. Crumpet sits outside Mrs. Fidget's General Store on "a particularly glorious Tuesday morning" with the sun dripping "from the sky like warm honey." Set up the cosiest chair you have. Make tea. Real tea. Perhaps something that tastes faintly of rhubarb, if such a thing exists.

Before you listen, assemble a small collection of odd objects. A thimble. A tin cup. A wooden mug with a hole in the bottom. A bucket. Ask everyone to guess: what might these be for? What stories do they hold?

And discuss the flummywisters. What do you imagine they look like, these birds with "feathers like scrambled ribbons"? What might their yodelling sound like?

For Oh, the Roaming Fairy Folks of Mischief:

This one requires different preparation. Clear some space. You might need to move furniture. The story involves jack-rabbits with legs "like a particularly gangly spider," a whirlwind that carries away a skyscraper, and chaos of the highest order.

Before you listen, ask everyone to take off their shoes. Something about bare feet makes the absurd more accessible.

If you have a rusty pocket watch, place it in the center of the room. If not, any watch will do. Ask: what would you do if this watch suddenly grew dragonfly wings?

For The War of the Whiffle Waffles:

Food is essential here. Have something baked and waiting. Waffles, ideally, though pies would also honor the story's spirit. The tale takes place in Wobbleton-upon-Jelly, where "pies are plentiful" and the sky is "jam tart pink every Thursday."

Before you listen, ask: what would you defend with everything you had? What's your bakery? And what do you imagine the Whiffle Waffles look like? Are they terrifying? Absurd? Both?

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While You Listen: The Art of Active Attention

Now comes the listening itself. But listening doesn't mean sitting perfectly still in silence—unless that's what your group wants. There are other ways to be present with a story.

Drawing While Listening:

Many minds listen better when hands are busy. Provide paper and drawing supplies. Encourage listeners to sketch what they hear: the Gingham Glimmergit, the flummywisters, the jack-rabbits in their candy floss coats, the Luftwaffes dropping cinnamon bombs.

The drawings don't need to be good. They just need to be theirs. After the story, compare. Did anyone imagine the same thing? Did everyone imagine something different? This is the miracle of listening—the same words become a thousand different pictures.

Pausing to Wonder:

Audiobooks can be paused. Use this power.

When Oliver reaches the moment where he must decide whether to remove his mittens, pause. Ask: what would you do? When Crumpet explains the purpose of each of his collected oddities, pause. Ask: what would you collect, and what stories would you tell about it?

When the rusty pocket watch begins to grow wings, pause. Ask: what happens next? When the Whiffle Waffles first appear in their flying machines, pause. Ask: are they friends or foes? How can you tell?

These pauses turn listening from a passive experience into an active conversation. They invite listeners into the story as participants rather than observers.

Noticing the Language:

Joules Young's stories are rich with strange and wonderful language. Listen for it together. Notice when a phrase makes you smile or pause or wonder.

In Oliver's story, the stars are "forming mathematical equations" and the wind "had been skulking around the hedgerows like a mischievous cat." In Crumpet's tale, his face is "like a slightly confused turnip" and his hair "the colour of mashed carrots." In the fairy story, the jack-rabbits have "legs scrabbling madly and their eyes wide with that unique expression of someone who's just remembered the answer to a riddle from six weeks ago." In the waffle war, the map of Wobbleton-upon-Jelly is "notorious for moving things around when people weren't looking."

Ask: what's your favourite phrase? What picture does it make in your mind? What would you call a creature that yodels from oak trees?

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After You Listen: Keeping the Story Alive

The story doesn't end when the narrator stops speaking. It echoes. It lingers. It asks to be carried forward.

For Oliver Hefflewhistle:

Remember that snowbird feather. Have each listener create their own token—something small and light that might float down from a window. It could be a real feather, a paper snowflake, a ribbon, a note folded into a tiny bird. Place these tokens somewhere special. They are proof that you, too, have been serenaded by something wonderful.

For Old Crumpet Noggin:

Create your own collection of oddities. Go around the room and have each person contribute one object with a story attached. The object can be anything—a button, a stone, a teaspoon, a thimble. The story can be true or invented. Place them all in a "mysterious bucket" and take turns explaining what each one is for.

And don't forget to discuss that twenty-five-year wait for a wealthy merchant. What have you been waiting for? What would it feel like if it finally arrived?

For Oh, the Roaming Fairy Folks of Mischief:

The jack-rabbits in this story are chaos agents in the best possible way. After listening, have your own chaos parade. Put on music. Move through the house or garden in the most ridiculous way possible. Leap. Somersault. Spin. If anyone asks what you're doing, tell them you're practicing your "Twizzlehop pirouettes."

Alternatively, build something that might fly away. A paper skyscraper. A cardboard luftwaffe. A watch with construction-paper wings. See if you can make it soar—even just across the room.

For The War of the Whiffle Waffles:

Have that taste test you've been planning. Make waffles in different shapes and sizes. Vote on which one the Whiffle Waffles would claim as their own. Discuss: if you had to flee your home like Fizzwick and Toddy, what three things would you take with you? What would you name your new farm?

And consider that beautiful dedication: "To little things long remembered / To Moonlight walks and shooting stars / To D, Young / From the girl who painted stories and the boy who sat beside her." Ask your listeners: who would you dedicate a story to? What little things do you want long remembered?

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A Note for Educators and Group Leaders

The free audiobook platform offers particular gifts for classroom and group settings.

For mixed-age groups: These four stories work across ages. Younger children will delight in the surface adventures—the waffle war, the flying watch, the chaos of jack-rabbits. Older listeners can dive deeper into questions of hope, patience, courage, and belonging. Let each listener find their own level.

For reluctant readers: Audiobooks remove the barrier of decoding. A child who struggles with print can still climb inside these worlds. Consider providing a physical copy of the story to follow along with the audio—this builds reading skills while preserving the joy of the tale.

For vocabulary building: Joules's language is rich and strange. Words like "flummywisters," "glimmergit," "luftwaffes," and "twizzlehop pirouettes" invite curiosity. What might these words mean? How can you tell from context? What would you name a creature that no one has named before?

For community building: Listening together creates shared experience. After each story, leave time for unstructured conversation. What did everyone notice? What questions do they have? What part do they want to hear again?

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The Technology Question

Some listeners worry about screens and devices. These concerns are valid. But audiobooks need not mean more screen time.

Load the stories onto a simple MP3 player if you have one. Play them through a speaker so the whole room can hear together. Make listening a ritual rather than a background activity. The device is just the delivery system. The story is what matters.

And remember: for centuries, stories were only ever oral. The voice was the only technology. Audiobooks are not a departure from tradition—they are a return to it.

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A Final Thought on Listening

There's a moment in "Old Crumpet Noggin" that I think about often. Crumpet, when asked about his sign reading "I Am Not Entirely Blind—Just Thoughtful," explains:

"That's for those who have eyes but don't use 'em. You know, the ones who walk around staring straight ahead but never really see what's going on. Too busy thinking about their daily troubles, like whether they've remembered to feed the cat or locked the back door. They're just as blind as I am—though, mind you, my blindness is more of a philosophical nature."

This is what listening asks of us. Not just to have ears, but to use them. Not just to hear the words, but to really hear them—to stop staring straight ahead at our daily troubles and notice what's going on.

The flummywisters are yodelling. The stars are doing arithmetic. A boy is playing a Gingham Glimmergit with mittens on. A pair of pigs are defending their bakery from waffles. Five jack-rabbits are learning to somersault.

Listen closely. There's so much to hear.

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Next in Blog 3: "Something Invented This Way Comes — Becoming Story Catchers Yourself"

Until then: put on a story. Close your eyes. Let the words do their work.

Look, Listen, Linger, Laugh, and Love.

— Sophia Salazar, Editor-in-Chief