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Teens Do Listen - when it counts
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May 03, 2017 02:14PM
This is Aurelia for AudioFile. With the summer coming up, we're paying particular attention this May to topics that teens are talking about and dealing with. Big stuff - the future of dreamers, immigrants, bullying, the climate, and more. Fiction. Non-fiction. Full-cast audio. We're intending the suggestions for teens, but I bet you'll be interested too. Do add your suggestions and comments - it's much more fun that way.
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My first suggestion in Teens Do Listen comes from the newest AudioFile e-newsletter. Veronica Chambers' The Go-Between, is all about what happens when your Mexican film-star mom moves the family to the States and the kids in your new school assume you're a poor 'immigrant kid'. Whoa. Sound clip and review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi... Karla Souza gives it an Earphones Award-winning performance.
Everyone teen to adult should listen to The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas narrated by, Bahni Turpin This book is so amazing!! It is very well written and a story that needs to be told, Thomas not only handled the topic of Black Lives Matter so well but also wrote a great book about family, friendship and coming of age in a volatile time.
MissSusie wrote: "Everyone teen to adult should listen to The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas narrated by, Bahni Turpin This book is so amazing!! It is very well written and a story that needs to be told..."
MissSusie, I didn't know that book at all. Thanks for adding it to this list! As it turns out, our AudioFile reviewer loved it as much as you did: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi.... An Earphones Award for Bahni. I just listened to the sound clip. She's so good, and as you say, such an important topic made accessible. I admit that I can sometimes run away scared of these topics, so it feels good to turn and face it.
Yay! It so deserved an Earphones Award Bahni's narration was so great.
Aurelia here with a suggestion that touches on teenage immigration and the trauma that often precedes it. Sara Novic's Girl at War, beautifully read by Julia Whelan: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi.... Set in Croatia and America, it's a brief and riveting listen.
AudioFile wrote: " Aurelia here with a suggestion that touches on teenage immigration and the trauma that often precedes it. Sara Novic's Girl at War, beautifully read..."Oh I've had this one on my wishlist for awhile didn't realize Julia Whelan narrates it will have to listen to this one!
Sudan to Egypt to America. That's the voyage taken by the teenager in Terry Farish's excellent The Good Braider, given an equally excellent performance by Cherise Boothe. Here's the sound clip and review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
Bullying is ever-present in the lives of teens these day, and Eric Gansworth's If I Ever Get Out of Here take on different kids, including one form the 'rez', in an all-white school, says it all. Read so well by the author himself. http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi...
This is Aurelia with Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park, Lee H. Whittlesey's delightfully gruesome compendium of real-life human idiocy (often adult) in that famous national park. It's a diversion from real life which might appeal particularly to teens coping with the vagaries of adults and other kids. And it's terrifically read by the veteran Stephen R. Thorne: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
What's it like to know a bully, let alone care for one? April Genevieve Tucholke's brief and offbeat story, Wink Poppy Midnight, terrifically read by Michael Crouch, Alicyn Packard, and Caitlin Davies, finds out: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
The world's climate is changing, and to judge from their social media posts, today's teens are concerned. This is Aurelia with the first of some nature and climate related books for teens. Susan Beth Pfeffer's This World We Live In, read by Emily Bauer, is the third in an addicting fiction series about what happens to a teenager's world when the moon is damaged. http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
Seventeen year-old Pen is separated from her family after an environmental disaster in Francesca Lia Bloch's Love in the Time of Global Warming: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi.... Based on Homer's The Odyssey, it's nicely read by Julia Whelan.
Evidently, when the Antarctic ice sheet melts, those of us in coastal communities are in deep, mm, water. We found this recent article fascinating and scary: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2....So, sticking with the earth/climate change topic, here's National Book Award finalist,Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi, given an Earphones Award-winning performance by Joshua Swanson. Sound clip and review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi.... The waters are rising and the storms are crashing, and young Nailer is dead set on a rescue mission.
Aurelia here, just back from weekend with my teen niece and nephew. We talked about the audiobook of Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen, which got a great AFM review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi.... That and the recent National Geographic issue on gender sparked some great conversations on personal identity and social justice.
In a week when two Indonesians were publicly caned for homosexuality, it seemed an opportune time to post the terrific rendition of Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights by Ann Bausum, read by Tim Federle and Ann Bausum. Sound clip and review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi.... The Earphones Award is much deserved.
Sticking with the theme of social justice, this time seen through the lens of race relations, Ta-Nehisi Coates' reading of his own Between the World and Me is right on target and a great way to spark conversation. Sound clip and review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
Aurelia here with a couple more suggestions of terrific books for 'teens do listen - when it counts', given Earphones Award-winning performances by Goodreads favorites Robin Miles and Bahni Turpin.American Street by Ibi Zoboi follows a Haitian-American teen to Detroit after her mom is taken by U.S. Immigration authorities. Sound clip and review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas has teenage Starr negotiating her gang-ridden neighborhood and private, mostly-white school. Sound clip and review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
Teens are often willing to look at tough subjects, particularly when the subject affects them as much as teen suicide. Aurelia here with an Earphones Award-winning performance by Michael Crouch on Zentner's Goodbye Days about a 17-year-old whose texting contributed to the deaths of three friends. It's a fierce and terrific listen. Sound clip and review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....And here's an excellent NPR piece on a student-led Michigan program that battles teen suicide: http://www.npr.org/2017/05/30/5307698....
Aurelia here. This is such in interesting listening area that I thought I'd continue the discussion thread for awhile. Please feel free to add your suggestions for powerful audiobooks that really engage the important topics that teens care about today.Today's suggestion is the 2017 Audie Award winner in the Young Adult category. The WWII setting for Ruth Sepetys' Salt to the Sea (powerfully read by Jorjeana Marie, Will Damron, Cassandra Morris, Michael Crouch) may be ancient history to teens. But the novel about teens caught up in the middle of conflict is timeless and gripping. Sound clip and review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
Dealing with people who are different than us is never easy, and it's what students do every day at school. Steven B. Frank's Armstrong & Charlie, excellently performed by Ruffin Prentiss, Christopher Gebauer, and Karen Chilton, takes us to the heart of the matter in a middle school. Review: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
Claudia Gray's Defy the Stars has a perfect title for what the teen years can feel like, and Nate Begle and Kasey Lee Huizinga have given it an ace performance: http://www.audiofihttp://www.audiofil... What does it mean to be alive and in love in the future when a human and a 'mech' fall for each other?
Aurelia here. Posting about Sherman Alexie's newest memoir just now in 'Latest from AudioFile' reminded me of his slightly-fictionalized memoir for young adults, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, for which he won an Earphones Award: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi.... It's crazy good.
Summer is the time for road trips, and the quirky one in Jeffery Self's Drag Teen, given an excellent performance by the author, offers much to delight in and ponder: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/revi....
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Drag Teen (other topics)Drag Teen (other topics)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (other topics)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (other topics)
Defy the Stars (other topics)
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