I see this question frequently in the My Father's World social media groups for Rome to the Reformation at the beginning of each school year:
"Does anyone know where I can find an audiobook version of Augustus Caesar's World?"
It's a very interesting book, but the assigned reading sections are really quite long. Trust me, I feel you: my voice was cracking and I was desperate for my teenager to take a turn reading.
As far as there being an audiobook, by all reports, there isn't one. I saw someone at one point say there was one for access by persons with reading-related disabilities only and accessing it as a person without those types of disabilities would be fraud. Supposedly that's the only audio version out there.
And honestly, after having read the whole thing, I can tell you that the lack of an audiobook is actually a GOOD thing if you're a discerning Christian parent who wants to protect the hearts and minds of your kids.
Allow me to explain. When you use an audiobook, what do you do? You put it on for the kids to listen to and you probably get absorbed in sorting up the next worksheets and finding the pages for the next thing you're going to teach. Or you leave the room to go switch the laundry or make a phone call while it's quiet. How many of you actually sit there with your finger on the STOP button to halt it when it gets to a part that is questionable or, for My Father's World users, to a part that the TM says to skip? How many of you follow along with the book to know exactly when it gets to the line or paragraph you're supposed to skip?
And it does say to skip things. The second line on the 3rd paragraph, or the last 2 paragraphs of page blah blah blah. Because there are some things on that page are better as a family theological discussion not something dropped into the middle of the lesson where the author is saying it like it's gospel and Mom might not be in the room to call the kids' attention to the questionability of some of the statements.
What sorts of questionable things are in the Augustus Caesar's World book? I noticed, in the course of reading the book, that the author seems to have a universalist-esque sort of view, as it became more and more obvious through the book that the author was describing anyone who held to the view of there only being ONE god as having found the whole truth. Like it didn't matter if they were also practicing pagan spiritualism or if their one-god was very obviously not the God of the Bible, so long as they were monotheistic, the author speaks of them as if they are enlightened humans on the path to heaven.
Another thing I noticed was the author spoke of Jesus in a way that seemed as though He were just a famous kid in history who was given the title of Savior whether he truly was or not, and spoke FOR Him as though He were just a typical kid with no idea that He was God-With-Us, when this is clearly against the teachings of the Bible. In the MFW TM it says to skip some of these parts of Augustus Caesar's World and read about Jesus from the actual Bible - wise advice.
Another thing, a lesser thing than the aforementioned possible spiritual misleadings, that would be a problem with using an audiobook format, one for those using My Father's World, is that the Augustus Caesar's World book is arranged approximately chronologically, jumping around from place to place, from people group to people group while holding the timeline. The rest of the MFW Rome to the Reformation curriculum is arranged by locations or by trains of thought. So rather than jumping from place to place to tell all the stories in chronological order as is laid out in Augustus Caesar's World, we would follow a people group until the conclusion of that segment of their history, then backtrack to the next people group and follow them for a segment of time, and so on. This is through all the historical books that MFW has us reading at once, so that we stay with each thought-train through all the materials for a logical span.
In summary, I think while the book has a very engaging, memorable way of presenting the life and times of Augustus Caesar, more and more toward the end of the book the author's unbiblical beliefs come out in a way that instructs the children that these unbiblical ideas are truth, that the author's fictitious words and thoughts on behalf of Jesus are truth. A wise parent of young children wouldn't want to leave them unattended with an audiobook for this work, and a wise parent of older children would not want to leave the author's opinions unchallenged and undiscussed.
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