English Speaker Audio Book Sample, strong accent and character work
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
British (England - Cockney, Estuary, East End) British (General) North American (General) North American (US General American - GenAM)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
Matilda by Roald Dahl. By the time she was three, Matilda had taught herself to read by studying newspapers and magazines that lay around the house At the age of four. She could read fast and well and she naturally began hankering after books. The only book in the whole of this enlightened household was something called easy cooking belonging to her mother. And when she had read this from cover to cover and had learned all the recipes by heart, she decided she wanted something more interesting. Daddy. She said, do you think you could buy me a book? A book? He said, what do you want to fly me book for? To read, daddy? What's wrong with that sally for Evans psych. We've got a lovely tally where the 12 inch screen and now you come asking for a book. Great and spoiled my girl. Nearly every weekday afternoon Matilda was left alone in the house. Her brother, five years older than her, went to school. Her father went to work and her mother went out playing bingo in a town eight miles away. mrs Wormwood was hooked on Bingo and played it five afternoons a week on the afternoon of the day when her father had refused to buy her a book, Matilda set out all by herself to walk to the public library in the village. When she arrived she introduced herself to the librarian. Mrs Phelps. She asked if she might sit awhile and read a book mrs Phelps, slightly taken aback at the rival of such a tiny girl unaccompanied by a parent. Nevertheless, she told her she was very welcome. Where are the Children's books, please, Matilda asked. They're over there on those lower shelves. Mrs Phelps told her would you like me to help you find a nice one with lots of pictures in it? No, thank you, Matilda said. I'm sure I can manage From then on every afternoon, as soon as her mother had left for Bingo, Matilda would toddle down to the library. The walk took only 10 minutes and this allowed her to glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cozy corner, devouring one book after another. When she had read every single Children's book in the place she started wandering around in search of something else. Mrs Phelps, who had been watching her with fascination for the past few weeks now got up from her desk and went over to her. Can I help you, Matilda? She asked. I'm wondering what to read next, Matilda said. I finished all the Children's books. You've mean? You've looked at the pictures. Yes, but I've read the books as well. Mrs Phelps looked down at Matilda from her great height and Matilda looked right back about her. I thought some were very poor, Matilda said, but others were lovely. I liked the Secret garden. Best of all. It was full of mystery. The mystery of the room behind the closed door and the mystery of the garden. Behind the big wall. Mrs Phelps were stunned exactly. How old are you, Matilda? She asked. Four years and three months. Matilda said. Mrs Phelps was more stunned than ever, but she had the sense not to show it. What sort of book would you like to read next? She asked. Matilda said, I would like a really good one that grownups read a famous one. I don't know any names. Mrs Phelps looked along the shelves, taking her time. She didn't quite know what to bring out how, she asked herself. Does one choose a famous grown up book for a four year old girl? Her first thought was to pick a young teenagers romance of the kind that is written for 15 year old school girls. But for some reason she found herself instinctively walking past that particular shelf. Try this, she said at last, It's very famous and very good. If it's too long for you, just let me know and I'll find something shorter and a bit easier. Great expectations. Matilda read by Charles dickens. I'd love to try it. I must be mad. Mrs Phelps told herself. But to Matilda, she said, of course you may try it to kill a mockingbird by harper lee. Early one morning as we were beginning our days play in the backyard gym and I heard something next door and Miss Rachel Haverford College Patch. We went to the wire fence to see if there was a puppy. Miss Rachel's Rat Terrier was expecting. Instead we found someone sitting looking at us, sitting down. He was much higher than the collards. We stared at him until he spoke. Hey, hire yourself, said Jim, pleasantly. I'm Charles baker Harris, he said, I can read. So what? I said, I just thought you'd like to know I can read. You got anything needs reading, I can do it. How old are you asked. Jim. 4.5 going on seven. Shoot. No wonder, then, said Jim, jerking his thumb at me. Scout. Yonder has been reading ever since she was born, and she ain't even started school yet. You look right puny for going on seven. I'm little, but I'm old, he said. Jim brushed his hair back to get a better look. Don't you come on over Charles baker, Harris, he said. Lord! What a name! It's not any funnier than yours, that righteous says your name is jeremy, atticus, finch. Gm! Scout. I'm big enough to fit mine, he said. Your name is longer than you are, but it's a foot longer. Folks! Call me Deal, said Dill, struggling under the fence. Do better if you go over it instead of under it, I said, Where'd you come from? Dill was from Meridian, Mississippi was spending the summer with his aunt, Miss Rachel, and we'll be spending every summer and make him from now on. His family was from Macon County. Originally. His mother worked for a photographer and Meriden and had entered his picture in a beautiful child contest and won $5. She gave the money to Deal who went to the picture show 20 times on it. Don't have any picture shows here except jesus ones in the courthouse sometimes said jim ever seen anything good? Dill had seen dracula a revelation that moved jim to eye him with the beginning of respect tail it to us. He said Dill was a curiosity. He wore blue linen shorts that button to his shirt. His hair was snow white and stuck to his head like duck fluff. He was a year my senior, but I towered over him as he told us the old tale. His blue eyes with lighting and dark and his laugh was sudden and happy. He habitually pulled at a cowlick in the center of his forehead when Dill reduced dracula to dust and jim said the show sounded better than the book. I asked deal where his father was. You ain't said anything about him. I haven't got one. Is he dead? No. Then if he's not dead, you've got one, haven't you? Deal blushed and jim told me to hush. A sure sign that Deal had been studied and found acceptable. Thereafter the summer passed and routine contentment, routine contentment was improving our treehouse that rested between giant twin china berry trees in the backyard fussing running through our list of dramas based on the works of Oliver optic victor. Appleton and Edgar Rice Burroughs in this matter. We were lucky to have Deal, he played the character part formerly thrust upon me. The ape in Tarzan Mr Crabtree and the rover boys, Mr Damon and Tom Swift. Thus we came to no deal as a pocket merlin whose head teamed with eccentric plans, strange longings and quaint fancies. But by the end of august our repertoire was vapid from countless reproductions. And it was then that deal gave us the idea of making boo radley come out the fault in our stars by john green. There were five others before they got to him. He smiled a little. When his turn came his voice was low, smoky and dead sexy. My name's augustus Waters, he said, I'm 17. I had a little touch of osteosarcoma a year and a half ago, but I'm just here today at Isaac's request. And how are you feeling? Asked Patrick. Oh, I'm grand. Augustus Water smiled with the corner of his mouth. I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up my friend. When is my turn? I said. My name is hazel. I'm 16 thyroid with Metz and my lungs. I'm okay. The hour proceeded. Apace fights were recounted, Battles won amid war, sure to be lost. Hope was clung to families were both celebrated and denounced. It was agreed that friends just didn't get it. Tears were shed comfort. Pre offered neither augustus Waters nor I spoke again until Patrick said augustus. Perhaps you'd like to share your feelings with the group. My fears. Yes, I fear oblivion, he said without a moment's pause. I feared like proverbial blind man who's afraid of the dark too soon, Isaac said, cracking a smile. Was that insensitive? Augustus asked. I could be pretty blind to other people's feelings. Isaac was laughing, but Patrick raised a chastising finger and said, Augustus, please, let's return to you and your struggles. You said you fear oblivion? I did, Augustus answered. Patrick seemed lost. Would uh would anyone like to speak to that? I hadn't been in proper school in three years. My parents were my two best friends. My third best friend was an author who did not know I existed. I was a fairly shy person, not the hand raising type. And yet just this once I decided to speak, I half raised my hand and Patrick, his delight evident immediately, said hazel. I was, I'm sure he assumed opening up becoming part of the group. I looked over at augustus waters who looked back at me. You could almost see through his eyes. They were so blue. There will come a time, I said, when all of us are dead, all of us, there will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There'll be no one left to remember Aristotle or cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten, and all of this. I gestured, encompassing. Lee will have been for not. Maybe that time is coming soon, and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be a time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it, god knows that's what everyone else does. I'd learned this from my aforementioned third best friend Peter van Houten, the reclusive author of an imperial affliction, the book that was as close a thing as I had to. A bible. Peter Van Houghton was the only person had ever come across who seemed to a understand what it's like to be dying and be not have died. After I finished, there was quite a long period of silence as I watched a smile spread all the way across augustus face. Not the little crooked smile of the boy, trying to be sexy while he stared at me, but his real smile too big for his face. *******! Augustus said quietly, aren't you something else?
Tags
Characters, Child, Girl Next Door, Kid Next Door, Villain, Amusing, Animated, Authentic, Caring, Cartoon, Comforting, Engaging, Humorous, Warm, Approachable, British (England - Cockney, Estuary, East End), British (General), North American (General), North American (US General American - GenAM)