I read all of The Sugar Creek Gang books by Paul Hutchens when I was a kid, and over the years I’ve borrowed them from the library for my own kids. But when I say “audiobooks” my kids ears perk right up! They love to ‘multitask’, listening to audiobooks while washing dishes, sweeping floors, mowing the yard, playing games, and even doing school. I have to admit that they got this habit from me – I’m listening to an audiobook while I write this review!

For parents looking for wholesome and engaging adventure stories for their kids, Beloved Books offers The Sugar Creek Gang in audiobook form. These tales are chock full o’ fun and crazy experiences from a time when the word ‘gang’ meant a bunch of kids hiking and camping, building tree houses, and fishing.

The stories are narrated in an old-fashioned ‘radio show’ format, with the main protagonist Bill Collins (Jasper when he’s in trouble) relaying the day-to-day happenings of a young boy and his friends growing up in Indiana.

With nicknames like Dragonfly, Poetry, and Circus, it’s obvious that these characters are from a different time in America – the children attend a one-room schoolhouse, are obsessed with fishing (and actually eat what they catch), go skinny-dipping to cool off on a hot day, and carry rifles (real ones) around like kids today carry cell phones. They also speak a different language, using slang like ‘lickety-sizzle’, ‘tramp’, ‘jiffy’, and ‘licking’, and idioms like ‘thick as gravy’ and ‘white as typewriter paper’. Written for kids of any age, these stories are action-packed and sure to spark nostalgia in many adults.

Sort of like Tom Sawyer, only without the Becky obsession and ham stealing.

We reviewed Volume 1 which included these stories:

• The Swamp Robber
• The Killer Bear
• The Winter Rescue
• The Lost Campers
• Chicago Adventure
• The Secret Hideout

The gang have many adventures in each story – some being the normal life adventures of getting a new baby sister, rescuing a kitten, and camping out with friends. Some are major happenings, like solving a mystery about a robber, encountering a black bear, surviving the flooding of Sugar Creek, and spending a night in a spooky cave. Bill describes in detail what he is doing and where he is going, thereby relaying many interesting facts about animals, nature, and rural living. In one instance, the boys figure out how to use a regular watch as a compass. Almost makes me want to toss out our kids’ digital watches and phones with GPS apps. In another situation, the boys remove a tick from Poetry by lighting a match and touching the hot tip to the tick… I have such fond memories of doing this with my dog Mischief.

Each story is woven with insights into good character and Biblical principles, such as forgiveness, prayer, sowing and reaping, honoring and obeying parents, and the meaning of salvation. This is accomplished very naturally and within character. That is to say, these characters read like real kids, doing real kid things and thinking real kid thoughts. Bill admits that he doesn’t like doing his chores, but won’t say so out loud because that would be bad manners. The gang are sometimes oblivious of their surroundings, carelessly winding up in some scrape or other, and they do get into a fight. But each instance is handled in a way that communicates the fact that actions have consequences, self-control can be part of one’s mental makeup, and that there are Scriptures that can guide us in every situation.

I had a few minutes of “uh-oh” in the story “The Lost Campers”. The gang meet what they think is an “honest-to-goodness” Indian named Eagle Eye wearing a war bonnet, long black braids, bronze bracelets, bow and arrow… and his little brother Snow in the Face. All is explained, however, and no one loses their scalp.

Kudos to Paul Ramseyer, who does a fabulous job of reading the stories with a bit of a country accent and a heapin’ helpin’ of boyish emotion and charm that takes you right into the setting of the story.

All this talk of boys and boy-like adventures may have parents of girls thinking that the female members of the family won’t enjoy these stories unless they are ‘tomboys’. Not so at all. These stories are all about kids enjoying life and learning on the way, and the story lines and pace keeps the listener engaged.

Because this audio version are the original books read verbatim, these books can be used as a tool to strengthen reading skills as a read-along. Our library has almost every single Sugar Creek Gang book in their system, so it was easy to reserve the books to go along with each CD. For families who don’t gather around the television in the evenings, or want to break that habit, listening to these stories makes for a relaxing way to enjoy each other’s company and unwind before bed. Our kids often fall asleep listening to audiobooks, and I don’t worry that The Sugar Creek Gang will give them nightmares.

Beloved Books has the entire Sugar Creek Gang series available by volume or as an entire set. Volumes 1-6 on CD are priced at $54.95 each with FREE Media Rate postage. Get a price break by purchasing all 6 volumes for $279.70, a savings of $50. That is 36 stories- over 72 hours of storytelling on 72 CDs.

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