Storytime from around the World Audiobook

About the Authors

Alan Alexander Milne (1882–1956) was the son of a Scottish schoolmaster. Milne won a scholarship to Westminster School and later read mathematics at Cambridge. His real interest was in lighthearted writing; he edited the undergraduate magazine Granta and at twenty-four he became assistant editor of Punch. After serving as a signals officer in World War I he won additional acclaim as a playwright. His great success, however, came as a writer of children’s literature after publishing a series of verses about his young son Christopher Robin (When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six). Following the acclaim received for the Winnie-the-Pooh books, Milne published several novels as well as an autobiography, It’s Too Late Now (1939).

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was born in Odense, Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker and a washerwoman. As a young teenager, he became quite well known in Odense as a reciter of drama and as a singer. When he was fourteen, he set off for the capital, Copenhagen, determined to become a national success on the stage. He failed miserably, but made some influential friends in the capital who got him into school to remedy his lack of proper education. In 1829 his first book was published. After that, books came out at regular intervals. His stories began to be translated into English as early as 1846. Since then, numerous editions, and more recently Hollywood songs and Disney cartoons, have helped to ensure the continuing popularity of the stories in the English-speaking world.

Lauren Kratz had been a children’s librarian for fifteen years, including at The New York Public Library in the Bronx and now the Los Angeles Public Library. Lauren manages the Octavia Lab, a DIY makerspace at the Los Angeles Public Library. She also works as a content developer for the 2022 and 2023 Modern Library Platinum Award Winner LibraryCall, where she develops and records original and diverse stories which children can listen to from around the country.

Lorena Romero is an author, narrator, certified Spanish translator, and a public librarian specializing in early literacy and outreach to Spanish-speaking communities. She loves to write stories that Spanish-speaking children may relate to, often drawing on her own experiences growing up as a child in Mexico City, and as a teenager in California.

Lorena Romero is an author, narrator, certified Spanish translator, and a public librarian specializing in early literacy and outreach to Spanish-speaking communities. She loves to write stories that Spanish-speaking children may relate to, often drawing on her own experiences growing up as a child in Mexico City, and as a teenager in California.

About the Narrators

James Langton, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film, and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002.

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist, and mythologist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm’s law (linguistics), the co-author with his brother Wilhelm of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm and the editor of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.

Molly Milazzo is a librarian based in Sacramento. She also has experience with audio and film production, translation, and writing. With years of experience working with refugee resettlement organizations, and having worked with many cultural groups in which knowledge is passed down primarily through oral tradition, she is a fierce believer in the importance of multi-format storytelling, and in finding ways to make stories equitable, accessible, and inclusive.