Emily Connelly's Reading List

"The main character is a wolf, Little Lobo. There are all these anthropomorphic animals. It reminds me of the Richard Scarry stories, where you have these anthropomorphic animals going about their day. If you look at the picture book, there are all these things you can see going on in the background, but if you listen to the audiobook, you can hear all the sounds of Little Lobo and his friends going to the market, buying food for the luchadores, who are these pro wrestlers who are very hungry and want some food before their match. It’s such a sweet story of them going to talk to the luchadores , going to the different food trucks, picking out all the different foods, and then bringing it back for a big feast before the show. Gary Tiedemann is the narrator and he does a great job with all the different character voices. They’re not too silly but they’re definitely a little silly. There’s a rooster who’s talking in sort of a rooster-y voice and there’s all the different wrestlers from a little Chihuahua to a big bull. Listening to the book you get a sense of who all those characters are and their friendship. There’s something about the rhythm of the way it’s written and the style of the narration that is really appealing to younger listeners. There’s also Spanish interwoven in it—it’s set in a border town between the US and Mexico. It’s a lot of fun to listen to. Definitely. I don’t have a good handle on Spanish, so for them, hearing it from somebody who is a Spanish speaker, helps a lot with the pronunciations. They’re getting a sense of how to actually say these words. There’s even a glossary at the end with all these different food words that my four-year-old will sit and listen to—and then correct me. This is a book that’s partly about finding all these different foods for the different creatures, so they’re also getting a sense of all these foods they haven’t had before, but have seen Mom and Dad eating. Maybe they want to try tamales now, they’re excited about having salsa . That’s a food we’re now having a lot more of with the kids at our house."

"Overground Railroad is a book where you get the book and the CD to listen to together. I really like Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome as an author and illustrator pair. They did Before She was Harriet last year, which was an Audie Award winner. They’re beautiful pictures, and they really did such a marvellous job making a soundscape that goes along with it. So you hear crickets as this little girl and her parents are getting ready to leave early in the morning and you hear the whistle of the train and the rustle of people getting settled in their seats. Even without the picture book, you know what’s happening in the story. It’s narrated by Shayna Small and Dion Graham. Shayna is voicing most of it as this little girl, Ruth Ellen. She and her parents are part of the overground railroad, which the author explains she learned about in Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns . It’s about people leaving the South and going north to get out of oppressive tenant farming contracts, or just trying to find a better place to live. “These are all books where the narrator does an amazing job of drawing you into the story” I loved that Shayna is so good at making this younger character really relatable. She’s excited and she’s nervous about moving and then, within the story too, she’s reflecting on what she sees as she’s going along on the train. She’s reading a book out loud to her mother about Frederick Douglass and so their stories sort of pair together. Dion Graham’s voice comes in as the conductor calling out all the stops along the way, so you also get that sense of momentum, moving forward through their journey and then, when they arrive in New York, how that feels, to be in the big city. It can be a tricky thing to adapt a picture book into audio, but they did it just right with this one. It’s a piece of history that is great to explore with children. It wasn’t only the Underground Railroad. In the US, there is also a long history of Black families needing to move and make their lives in new places. How did that feel? It’s set in 1939: I can see the date on the newspaper somebody is reading. As they move north, her family’s allowed to move from the colored car at the front, right behind the engine, to other parts of the train. The little girl, Ruth Ellen, is excited to be moving, but then these white passengers block them and don’t let them sit down. It’s a reflection of going from the South where there was segregation to the North, where in name there wasn’t segregation, but in action there certainly was. It’s a book that you would listen to with your kids and then talk through. I would say it’s for eight- or nine-year-olds, but younger readers too. Honestly, having little kids is a great excuse for looking at all these different books and reading them. I did a library science degree, so I had a lot of fun studying children’s books—and adult books—in that too."

"This is a graphic novel that was adapted into audio. That can be a real trick, because if you think about how a graphic novel works, you get so much information from the images that you’re seeing. The book has a full cast to make this story really come to life. You get a sense of what it feels like from the dialogue, but you also have a soundscape—so you are hearing what it’s like to be in this refugee camp. This is a book that’s definitely for slightly older readers, I would say eight to 12 years and older. It’s inspired by a refugee from Somalia, Omar Mohamed, who is one of the co-authors. It’s roughly the story of him growing up in a refugee camp in Kenya and trying to get to safety in America. It’s about spending so many years there, waiting. His voice is narrated by Faysal Ahmed who has a very quiet sort of voice. I think that reflects the character very well. He really wants to go to school. He’s a young child, but he’s also responsible for taking care of his younger brother, because they got separated from their mom and they saw their father die. It’s a really heartbreaking story. It’s one that you certainly would also really want to talk through with your kids. Sign up here for our newsletter featuring the best children’s and young adult books, as recommended by authors, teachers, librarians and, of course, kids. I have the graphic novel too. Omar Mohamed wrote the book with Victoria Jamieson. She wrote Roller Girl , which was a popular graphic novel. They got connected to each other and wrote this story. When you read the graphic novel, you have all this imagery, but when you’re listening to the audiobook, you’re hearing the crowd all talking. The main character is called Omar, like the author. You can hear him talking to his younger brother, Hassan. Hassan has a developmental disability. He’s a very sweet character but it’s also challenging for Omar, because Hassan runs away and gets lost in this giant camp, but they do have others to help them. It’s just such an amazing story. I listened to it before I read the book in print and got that sense of what it was like with all the tents in the camp, all the different people that they meet and they’re friends with, their community that’s there. One of the interesting parts of this book is that you can really hear how much they all care for each other. They did a great job with the narrations. I’m not sure how many years he spent in this camp before being able to leave to go to America, but even though it’s an unstable place to be in, that’s where they were comfortable and that’s where they grew up. Then they leave all those people behind to go to a new country. Yes, the full cast and all the sound effects definitely makes for that cinematic feel when you’re listening. It makes it so you really are transported into that situation. So much of it is about waiting. You get that sense too, of the passage of time over the years. They’re just waiting to hear back if their application was accepted. They’re seeing other families leave and just wanting to have that certainty but also wanting to figure out how to get reconnected to their mom. If they leave the refugee camp how will that happen? They are. I think it’s closely tied to his life. There were some characters that they made up in the story to give it a different kind of narrative. It’s about a young boy, but he has some friends who are younger girls and it shows what it’s like for them. There’s pressure on them to not keep being in school and to focus on getting married. I think they handled that very well."

"This is a novel, and it’s no secret that Jacqueline Woodson is an incredible author. She is a favourite of ours at AudioFile . We’ve loved audiobooks that she recorded herself, but in this case, there’s a narrator, Guy Lockard, who is just brilliant. It’s a story about a young boy, ZJ, who really idolizes his father. His father was a former pro football player who had to stop playing because of this mysterious illness. It’s set in the late 1990s/early 2000s, when doctors hadn’t made the connection yet between chronic brain injuries and what they were seeing in these football players, but eventually they figure out he has CTE—chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The story is told from the point of view of ZJ, who is 12. It’s written so that you’re picking things up the way he would, so he’s hearing his parents talk and seeing them go to all these doctors’ appointments. He’s watching his father change a lot and struggling to understand it. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . I love hearing Guy Lockard narrate—he also does many of Jason Reynolds’s audiobooks. He has such a lively voice and really emphasizes the difference between before, when ZJ was used to his father picking him up and throwing him on his shoulders and all the fans cheering him on and what it was like after, the ‘ever after’ that he talks about, the uncertainty of what’s happening to his father. This is one audiobook that I was listening to and crying, just thinking of my own family’s history with Alzheimer’s. It’s definitely going to be a tough topic for some younger listeners if they’ve had any similar experiences with family members, but it’s also an affirming story. 2020 has been such a tough year for so many kids and I think it can be helpful to have realistic fiction to get a sense of how others deal with uncertainty and how they can overcome it. The book doesn’t end with anything being solved, necessarily, but it ends with him finding a way to be connected to his dad and his mom. I know. Every year the list is a bit different. I think part of it is that when you’re listening to audiobooks, you get that really strong emotional connection to the story. These are all books where the narrator does an amazing job of drawing you into the story—even if it’s such a specific story, like this one, about a football injury. I have no connection to football , but I played sports in high school and college and the heartbreak of being so connected to a sport and having that taken away from you because of the impact of that sport , it’s intense. “When you’re listening to audiobooks, you get that really strong emotional connection to the story” There are some tough stories on this list, but every single one of them also has a bright side. In this one, ZJ has such close friendships, it’s very sweet. His parents are loving and kind and supportive even through this uncertainty and he has good friends and teachers who are there for him. So, I think that’s really good to see. I know and I also think it helps kids—and adults—develop empathy, to be listening to stories of others. It can be so affirming to read a book and see some of yourself in it. Even if it’s somebody who maybe doesn’t look like you or isn’t from the same community as you. In When Stars are Scattered you’re reading about a refugee camp—but you’re also reading about this kid who is dealing with friendships and worrying about schoolwork and how he can get everything done. That’s all so relatable. And waiting to grow up: I think that’s another commonality that we have."

"Like I said, I wasn’t a part of choosing all the titles, but this was another book where I said, ‘You really should consider having this on the list because it is such a powerful story.’ Ron Butler’s narration is so moving. Kacen Callender’s writing is so transporting into whatever story they’re telling. In this story we’re in Louisiana with a young Black boy, who is grieving his older brother who had just died, suddenly. It’s a tough topic, certainly, but we’re in a year where so many people are experiencing such trauma. Ron Butler’s narration just brings these different characters off of the page and into your ears. His voice for this kid, King, really captures being a younger kid thinking about grief and about school and about changing friendships. He will switch between characters and you’ll be like, ‘Is this the same narrator?’ He really gets those voices. You hear the quietness and the young voice of King and then his parents, who are dealing with their own grief of losing a son. We do have a video that Ron Butler recorded for us about his narration. “I think listening to the stories of others helps kids—and adults—develop empathy” King also feels a real disconnect and uncertainty about himself because he’s realizing that he’s gay. He doesn’t really know how to talk about that with his family or with anyone else and he’s worried what his older brother would have said if he’d found that out before he died. Also, as part of the story, his ex-best friend Sandy has gone missing and the town is looking for him and worried about him. King finds Sandy in his backyard hiding in a tent. So it’s also about their friendship. Sandy had come out to him and that was how they had broken up as friends. So it’s a complicated story. There’s a lot going on in the book. But it just has so much emotion to it. I think it’s another example of one where, listening to it, you’re just getting that whole connection with these characters in a way I don’t know if you would get as much if you were just reading it. You get all that empathy and it’s bittersweet but it’s also hopeful. It’s a beautiful audiobook. King has such a sweet imagination and he imagines that his brother has been reincarnated as a dragonfly. So he will go down to the Bayou and talk to the dragonflies and imagine that his brother is there. That’s a lovely piece of the book too. It’s teaching kids that there are lots of different ways to grieve when you’re faced with tragedy. It’s just such a sweet story."

"Yes, the author is Catherynne Valente. And it’s read by Heath Miller. He’s got a great Australian accent, but in this book he’s mostly doing a British accent, and one of the characters has a really rich Scottish brogue. It’s such a good, rich fantasy with a lot going on. It’s about a boy named Osmo who is longing for a more adventurous life. Then he really gets it: he gets sent on a quest into the dangerous Eightpenny woods, where he meets a pangolin whose name is Never. She’s part pangolin and part girl, and is one of his companions on the journey. The other companion on his trip is named Bonk, and is a skunk-badger-wombat. He’s the one with the Scottish accent, and he’s over-the-top melodramatic and really funny, so a lot of the humour comes from that character. It’s the most classical fantasy book of the ones we’re talking about today. It’s a really fun, interesting story. And it’s long, so if you’re looking for something nice for a longer car ride with 8-12 year olds, this is a good one."

"I wanted to think of something that is not fantasy. A lot of the books we were talking about are fantasy, but this is a classic mystery. It’s a good one for kids who are into Nancy Drew , or for parents who grew up reading Nancy Drew and want to introduce their kids to a more modern mystery series. It’s written by Annabelle Sami, and Xenia Starr is the narrator. She does a great job bringing all the different characters to life for listeners. There are a lot of different accents that come into play, and she balances all of those well. The series is set in the UK and this first book is set at a fancy hotel. The main character, whose name is Zaiba, is really interested in becoming a detective, and is always looking for a mystery. They’re at the hotel having a mehndi party for her cousin’s coming marriage. Another guest at the hotel, a fancy actress from America, has some diamonds stolen. So Zaiba gets on the case. It’s a good series for a wide age range. I’d say maybe six or seven year olds could be interested in it, too. There are a lot of interesting mysteries that happen in the different books in the series: there’s a haunted house one, there’s one that’s set at a village fair where there’s a cooking contest and something gets poisoned. They’re a really good introduction to the mystery genre. My kids definitely are drawn to fantasy . They’ll read fantasy graphic novels and fantasy more broadly. One of the things that they’ve talked about is that there can be scary things happening in those stories, but it’s not too scary for them because they know it’s not real. That separation helps them, versus listening to contemporary fiction where there are more real life things happening. So fantasy can let them read something that has more of an adventure to it, but it helps that it’s not so realistic. My daughter is listening to the Percy Jackson audiobooks now. She started with all the Rick Riordan Presents books, and she’s gotten really into Greek mythology . She’s also both enjoyed Medusa by Katherine Marsh, and Sparrows in the Wind by Gail Carson Levine. They’re fun stories, but you’re not going to be in the labyrinth pursued by dangerous monsters, so you can have that imaginary world separate from this world. The whole fantasy genre is great because you can access so many different worlds."

"Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon , narrated by Janet Song, would be a good fantasy series that would appeal to younger and older readers. These books draw a lot on Chinese mythology but have their own storylines, and they are good audiobooks for a broader age range. Another place I’d recommend looking is on AudioFile’s website . We have a list of book recommendations for kids broken down by age ranges . We update that periodically with newer titles, but that’s a good place to explore. It can be tricky on a road trip with the younger listeners, as a lot of the books are picture book adaptations and those are pretty short, so they don’t really make great books for long car rides. But if you look around you might find some that would work for different age ranges. For older kids, publishers continue to do great adaptations of graphic novels into audiobooks. There was a funny graphic memoir this year for young adult readers called Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy. It’s the sequel to Huda F Are You? Those are great adaptations for teens, which could be enjoyed by listeners as young as 11 and up. We’re continuing to see so many audiobooks get published, which is wonderful. I’ve been interested to see more full cast adaptations of graphic novels coming out. Graphic novels are such a good way for kids to get interested in reading because they’re so visual. Even if you don’t know what all the words are on the page you can figure out the story, so it’s a lot less intimidating than big blocks of text. It can be interesting to listen and read it at the same time, because you can see how they’ve had to adapt the audio experience. Obviously, if you’re listening, you’re not necessarily seeing what’s happening on the page; the audiobooks are recorded with the expectation that you would just be listening to it. So the audiobook producers have to figure out how to let people know who’s talking, in a way that is not intrusive: letting people know what’s going on in the graphic novel with sound effects or by describing something about where it’s set. There are factual books, too, like about how you play the Dungeons and Dragons game and other information texts. All kinds of books count as reading, and whatever kind of world you’re interested in, it’s out there for you to read and listen to."

"It is! When our reviewer sent in her review of this one she said something like ‘this is amazing, you have to listen to it.’ So I grabbed it to listen to and was so impressed with the combination of the authors along with the narrator, Thomas Quasthoff. He’s a Grammy-winning opera singer, and he has such a rich voice. He’s German, and he’s got this deep baritone, and I loved getting to hear him narrate their beautiful words. Plus, it’s told with musical accompaniment throughout the whole story. It’s an alphabet book, so you’re following the alphabet and learning more about orchestras and all the different instruments and concepts that go into making these performances. As you go, you get to hear these selections of music, some that are familiar and some that are less familiar. You can hear what an English horn sounds like and hear the lilting flute after hearing the poem about each. It’s just so beautifully done. I’m sure the picture book is beautiful, but getting to hear the music is a showstopper. Definitely. I know, because we listened to it in the car over and over again. You’re getting to hear a poem about each letter, and the beautiful selections of music. It’s such a great resource, but also just an enjoyable listen. It’s fun, too. The title is A Is for Oboe ; the reason is not necessarily intuitive, so it’s fun to see what each letter stands for. You get to piece it together as you listen and learn a little bit. Definitely. I think younger listeners could listen to it on their own, for sure. But I think it’s fun to listen to together, and I wound up explaining some of the ideas or some of the ways the poems were written to my younger child. Like, for the English horn, he says “he’s melancholy, proud, he’s a philosopher whose velvet truths embrace us with our own unspoken want”. It’s just such interesting poetry! You can pause, or listen to the music and talk through what that means, and about how hearing music can make you feel different emotions. It’s a beautiful listen, and as soon as I heard it, it stood out as a new favourite. Sign up here for our newsletter featuring the best children’s and young adult books, as recommended by authors, teachers, librarians and, of course, kids. I think even younger listeners would have a fun time hearing it, but probably around five or so is when you might have them understanding more of the concepts. It’s a musical piece in addition to an audiobook, so I think anybody would enjoy listening to it."

"Yes! And I would say this is an audiobook to listen to along with the picture book to get the most out of the story. It’s about a boy who’s going fishing with his dad early in the morning to catch fish for their family. He learns a little bit more about his father’s past in Vietnam and what brought them to the United States. It’s such a sweet story about the relationship between the father and son. I loved hearing the son’s pride in helping catch dinner and have food for their family. There are children who are very young who are experiencing things like the characters in the story and like the author, Bao Phi. It’s special to get to hear the author narrate it himself, it adds to the personal feeling of the story. You have his words, and if you’re looking at the book you have Thi Bui’s illustrations evoking so much of that past. Then, in the audiobook, there are sound effects and a little bit of music, and it all evokes this specific time. At the end, they have an author’s note and an illustrator’s note; it talks a bit about their own experiences, too, which is helpful for kids to listen to and connect with. I always appreciate when they include that in audiobooks, because they help give some context for what might not initially be obvious, and help illuminate what really happened, what Bao’s experience was like as a child and how it’s similar to and different from the story he’s telling here."

"This is one that was a family favourite. I’ve heard it many times, because my daughter loves it. She’s listened to it over and over! It’s such a beautiful fantasy audiobook. It’s more for middle-grade readers, probably age eight and up. Sura Siu, who narrates, does a marvellous job, she has a great time with all the different characters, telling the story that takes you out to sea on a ship and exploring new worlds. It goes into more tense situations, and she does a great job, not making it too scary but really helping you feel all the emotions around the story. I think that she has a good balance between the adventure story and the more serious subjects and how those tie together and specifically connect to her mapmaking. Throughout the book, Sai is learning about how to make maps, and gradually her mentor is teaching her about what happens after you’ve made this detailed map and other people go out to explore that place and have an impact on the people there. I think it’s interesting seeing how Christina Soontornvat has a background as a scientist, and I think that factors into the story as well, where you get a great sense of the ocean environments and the places they’re seeing, but also the impact that people can have on the environment and what we can do to try to preserve it. It’s a Thai-inspired fantasy world, so you’ve got the different place names and people’s names that Sura does a great job narrating to make it all feel very real. I think it is an excellent audiobook, and one that stood out for its beautiful narration and also the complex story it’s telling for younger readers."

"I really loved this. It’s so good. It’s a story about two people falling in love, of course, because that’s the heart of every romance, but it’s also a story of coming to America. It’s about a woman from Vietnam , Esme, who’s convinced to come and try to woo a young man by his mother. She’s doing it partly because she wants to have a better life for her family and for her daughter. So, it’s both a story of her meeting him in these funny circumstances, but also it’s a story of her figuring out her way in America, figuring out English and making her own path. I love that it’s both of those things. And hearing Emily Woo Zeller narrate means you get to hear all these Vietnamese words and phrases and conversations in a way that you can understand what’s going on. It’s all done within context, but you can hear the right tones and hear how it’s supposed to be pronounced, which adds so much to the story. “I chose some of my all-time favourites that I would recommend to other people” The author Helen Hoang’s first book was The Kiss Quotient , which was also excellent. But I really love this one, because added in the mix is this amazing character, Esme. Khai, the main male character, is Vietnamese also, but he doesn’t have the language very strongly. The two of them are conversing to each other: she’s talking in Vietnamese, he’s talking in English, they both understand a little bit. And you hear Esme learning English more as you go through the story. The narrator, Emily, did a great job translating that too. You can hear her English getting stronger and stronger as she goes. Khai is autistic, and so is the author. She has talked a bit about what that meant for her, to be writing an autistic hero, and an autistic heroine in The Kiss Quotient . She does it beautifully. Part of the story is that he’s always been told that he doesn’t feel emotions the right way. So he’s working through this relationship and figuring out how he feels about Esme and also recognizing that he, of course, does feel emotions, it’s just differently. Both of them grow so much over the course of the story. It’s very funny. It’s definitely steamy. It’s just a great listen. And honestly, that’s one of the things I love about getting to listen to audiobooks, you get to hear the accents, and the different character voices, and if there’s other languages in it that aren’t English, you get to hear those too. If the narrator does a good job, you get all the emotions of the conversations, and the context, but you also get to hear how things are actually pronounced. It’s really such an added bonus of getting to listen."

"I realized when I was putting the list together that there are a couple set in the UK. I think it’s partly because for me, as an American, getting to hear these accents adds a lot to the story. Also, these are just really excellent writers and narrators. They make the story so much fun to listen to. This audiobook, Get a Life, Chloe Brown is the first in a series. It was the first book by Talia Hibbert that I read. She’s excellent. I’ve really enjoyed reading her books in print and in audio. She’s such a funny writer. This is the one that I have gifted to friends most often. It’s about Chloe Brown, who’s had a brush with death: she witnessed a car accident and was almost involved. And she realizes how dull her eulogy would be, if anyone were talking about her life. So she decides, ‘That’s it! I’m going to change my life. I’m going to do things up’ and she makes a list of all the ways she’s going to change things. That’s also funny, her list-making self systematically deciding to be different. So she has a plan to make herself bolder, but also realizes that she needs help with that plan. She has chronic pain and fibromyalgia, which the author does as well. Being organized can help her cope when she’s in too much pain or has pushed herself too far. That’s not something that’s fixed over the course of the audiobook at all, but she’s figuring out new ways to cope with it while having more adventures. And she winds up getting help from her super, Red. Initially, they butt heads, but he helps her when she’s rescuing a kitten out of a tree. He’s this bad boy who rides a motorcycle and she decides he’s the perfect person to help her go out on the town. In exchange, she’s developing him a website. The two of them have such good banter and Chloe has this perfect wit, really dry, that comes across really well. And in the audiobook Adjoa Andoh is just so funny. She’s so perfect with the timing of everything and the pacing, and all the different voices. She has been getting a lot of buzz lately for her role as Lady Danbury in the Netflix show, Bridgerton, which people have been excited about. It’s so fun hearing her narrate this audiobook. Especially if you’re somebody new to romance, this is a great one to jump in with. They do, but I think all of these ones are probably on a fairly similar level of steaminess. There’s a camping trip they get to go on that’s a lot of fun and which is a big deal for her. Since she deals with chronic pain, the idea of going camping is an ordeal and Red goes all out making sure she’s super comfortable and making it a special experience. It’s really sweet."

"It’s also set in the UK, in London and it was one of our picks for the best romance audiobooks for 2020 . I hadn’t heard anything with this narrator before, Joe Jameson, but he is so good at making you laugh along with the story. He projects the characters so well. It’s a story between two British men who initially are extremely prickly towards each other. It’s a fake dating scheme, which is one of those tropes in romance novels that is so fun, these two people who are like, ‘It’s fine, we’ll just pretend we’re dating for this other reason.’ Of course, they won’t be able to resist each other. Luc is the main character and he is an estranged son of an aging rock star. He keeps winding up in tabloids and that’s affecting his work for the nonprofit he works for. They’re saying, ‘you need to be taken more seriously.’ So he winds up asking Oliver, who is a friend of a friend and a London barrister, who’s very proper, to pose as his boyfriend because he’s someone who is very well respected. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter In the audiobook, you get to hear all the accents of the main characters. There’s also Luc’s Welsh co-worker and his French mother. Joe Jameson did a great job moving between all of those. It’s a really fun listen. There’s a trend with a lot of these books that they’re both funny and sweet and there’s a depth to them, too. Both of the main characters are feeling very vulnerable due to past relationships and Luke’s exposure in the tabloids has affected the way he relates to the world a lot. But it’s also just so funny."

"Yes, it is. I think part of the appeal is you don’t see that time period explored very much, or at least I don’t. Most of the time you have Regency or Victorian romances. This is going way back, and it’s set during the Welsh rebellions against the Norman rulers. It’s part of a series, but it’s one that you can listen to on its own. You’ll get more out of it if you have listened to the previous ones, but it’s okay to start with this one. I love that it’s set in the medieval era but it’s also familiar in that it’s a road trip story. They spend most of the audiobook traveling around Wales, and you get a sense of where they’re going and what the countryside is like. That can be so nice, especially in times like now where you can’t travel and we’re all stuck at home. It’s fun to be on the road with them. Nicholas Boulton, the narrator, is a romance reader favourite. He’s very good in this series and is especially good at doing the Welsh accents and making all these very distinctive characters. We actually have a new interview with him up on our podcast, Behind the Mic ! The story is about a man Gryff, a Welshman in hiding who is captured by violent thieves. He’s being made to travel around with them to take care of the falcons that he’s been taking care of for years. He’s saved by a woman, Nan, who swoops in and kills all of the people who have been keeping him captive, pretty much on her own. She’s very skilled with knives. She doesn’t speak very much at all. He winds up traveling around with her, so it’s the two of them. He’s very secretive about who he is because he’s worried about being caught and she’s very secretive for her own reasons. The two of the work so well as a pair, it’s fun getting to travel around with them. But there are so many really rich historical details in this too. You can tell that the author has done a lot of research into falconry, about where they all are. I also really appreciated that there are Black characters and Jewish characters and context within the story for what that would mean at the time. Those are people who were actually there, and that’s not often shown in historical romances. So I think she did a great job with that, too. Yes, I have. In this series, at least. I read the first one in print and then I listened to the second two. It’s fun reading about a time that we’re not often seeing represented in historical romances. She does it really well."

"This is an Earphones Award winner from us. I started listening to it again, in advance of us talking. I listened a bit to all of them, but with this one I wound up getting two hours into it! It’s like, ‘Wow, yes, it’s still a really good story.’ It’s a contemporary romance. We’re back in modern times and it’s set in New York City . One of the things that’s so great about the story is that it’s so tied to the city and the main character’s relationships to it. We can’t travel anywhere, but the author makes you feel like you’re wandering around New York City with Meg and Reid. Part of the story is that these characters wind up going on a tour of their own making to find all these different hand-lettered signs around the city. So you’re getting a new appreciation of—or at least I did, I visited New York a lot of times, but I don’t know how much I always paid attention to—these old hand-lettered signs and the history behind them. It’s really fun to listen to and get that out of it. It’s a story that surprised me, because that was something that I didn’t think I would be very interested in, the whole idea of the detailed work of hand lettering. I think a lot of credit goes to the narrator, Nicol, who really highlights all the humour and playfulness of the audiobook. That’s right. Meg is a calligrapher. She has built a business around doing fancy, hand-lettered planners for clients that they’ll have her do once a month to make their lives look interesting. She enjoys it, but she’s also had a bit of a creative block. And this man, Reid, walks back into her life. She’d done his wedding program for him the year before. He comes in saying, ‘You need to tell me why you knew my wedding was a mistake.’ He’s realized there was a code that she had subconsciously written into his wedding program that spelled out the word ‘mistake’. She’s like, ‘That’s terrible, I can’t believe I did that! I don’t want anyone to know.’ But he never did wind up getting married because, for a number of reasons, he realized it was a mistake. As an aside, he also mentions that he hates living in New York and can’t wait to leave. So she decides that he would be a good companion for a tour looking for all these signs—the fun of showing him why she loves New York might spur something in her to get her through her creative block. “Reading romances right now can be such a comfort. You know it’s going to end okay” Another thing I loved about this book is that one of the key conflicts is Meg and her roommate, who have been best friends for a long time, having a falling out. She’s not sure why. Their friendship has changed, her friend is very distant, she’s going to move out of their apartment. So Meg is grieving this lost friendship. And I think that’s something that’s obviously so important in all of our lives, having these close friendships, and that’s not often represented. So the romantic relationship isn’t the only one that’s given prominence in the story. You get that added depth of, ‘How do you figure out new ways of being friends? How do you build new friendships when you’re an adult?’ And Nicol makes you feel just how upset Meg is over this shift in her friendship. It’s really an excellent story. And I don’t want to spoil anything, but it takes a very unexpected turn later on in the audiobook, something I really did not expect at all. It was one that was a surprise to me. Again, I think if somebody wasn’t a regular romance reader, and they were curious about the genre, this is a great one to get started. It’s one of my favourites. I fell into it when I started working at AudioFile. I was seeing all these reviews coming in of audiobooks that sounded so good. I thought I should try it out and see what I thought about it. There’s so much creativity in the genre. We all know the formula for romance is that there are two main characters who are going to fall in love by the end of the book, but the creativity in making a story—that even though you know it’s going to end happily, how are you going to get there?—can be so exciting. Also, I think to many people, reading romances right now can be such a comfort. You know it’s going to end okay, you’re not going to end the book and feel devastated by all the things that the author put the characters through. When there’s so much uncertainty in our lives right now, it can be nice to have that certainty. There was even one I read as an ebook, Whiteout , by Adriana Anders . It’s set in Antarctica and there’s a polar researcher and a cook, who wind up almost being killed by these evil people. They’re trekking across Antarctica and barely making it through alive. Even in the middle of winter and with all the uncertainty that everybody’s facing, the book was exciting and engaging. I knew it was going be okay, but how is the author going to get us there? What is going to happen? It was thrilling reading the book. I think people would think of it first as classics. That’s where I would mentally be putting it. I had read classics like those before I was a regular romance reader. I’d also read a number of young adult romances that I hadn’t really thought of as romance either. That’s another genre that’s so fun and full of a lot of creative writers."

"This audiobook is read by Isabella Star LaBlanc, who has not narrated a lot of audiobooks before. I think this was her first, and it was an impressive first. This book is probably for a little bit older of a young adult audience, 14 and up, just based on the intensity of the story. It’s a great combination of a young adult thriller and a love story. There’s a lot about understanding yourself and your family as well. It’s an engrossing story, and there’s something powerful about hearing that authentic narration where you’re getting a sense of any unfamiliar language that you might come across, but also just the cadence, and all those different characters coming to life through the narration. It’s really a powerful listening experience. It’s a story of a community, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians on reservation in Michigan. The story takes place on and off the reservation. The main character, whose name is Daunis, has grown up between those two cultures. She gets caught up in an investigation into a new street drug that has very devastatingly been impacting their communities. The FBI recruits her to try to find out where it might be coming from, because it might have something to do with Indigenous practices, they’re wondering if there’s a certain material that is getting used in this drug to make it more dangerous. So there’s this very serious examination of the way that those kinds of drugs can impact and devastate communities. And it’s also the story of Daunis trying to discover her own path within this community and her place within it. She’s getting pulled in two different directions because the FBI is coming at her with one perspective, and then she also has her community which she’s trying to protect from outside influences. There are a lot of twists to the story and it’s a very impressive debut. It’s one that I gifted a couple people after I read it, knowing that it would make a great listen even for adult listeners who enjoy reading young adult fiction. There are, exactly. I think hearing Isabella narrate you get to know all of these characters even better, because you hear them through her voice. It makes for such a good audiobook and it definitely was a very impressive debut for both of them, for the author and for the narrator. Yes, indeed, that certainly is a part of her journey throughout the audiobook. There are parts where she’s not feeling at home either on or off the reservation, and then there is the romance which also pulls her in different directions. But there’s so much love from within her community that really makes it a beautiful audiobook to listen to. Sign up here for our newsletter featuring the best children’s and young adult books, as recommended by authors, teachers, librarians and, of course, kids. It was a year with so many brilliant audiobooks out there, and so many ways to enjoy literature through audio. I know that it was a difficult year for many as well, with many students quarantining at home from school, or doing remote school, and audiobooks have been an excellent way for young listeners to feel connected to others. For any of your readers who want to try an audiobook who maybe haven’t before, take a look at the full list of all the different categories . There are so many excellent audiobooks, it makes a lot of sense to look for something that would appeal to you as listener or to your kids and give it a try and see, because these are a lot of the best from the whole year! And it can be surprising. Something like Stuntboy , which is really different from anything I’ve heard before, might be an exciting way to get a start with audiobooks and help listeners be introduced to that as a way to read and a way to find joy in literature."

"I think it was a great move. I love when authors can move around between different ages. With this audiobook, she’s moved not just into middle grade, but it’s also a really rich fantasy novel . It’s a good one for ages 8-12 and even older, for kids who are looking for a fantasy book that’s along the lines of Amari and the Night Brothers and Tristan Strong , some other favourites. It’s narrated by one of my favourite narrators, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, who has so much energy for stories like this where we’ve got many different characters. We’ve got kids being kids but also discovering new responsibilities and going on magical missions, and encountering different creatures. There’s a lot going on in the book, but there’s also some history woven into it, and it makes for a really exciting audiobook. When we were listening to it with the kids I was hearing a lot of “Oh my gosh, what!” at the plot twists. It’s the first in a series and I know kids love a good series . It’s a book that’s a lot of fun to get in on now, and then wait for book two to see what happens next. I’d say both Southern culture but also Black American culture, with stories that came over from Africa and have transformed here in America. And she puts her own twist on them. I think it’s so fun, like in Tristan Strong when you’ve got stories about Black kids who are learning from their ancestors and their past, but also making you feel very present and making it feel very alive for kids who are listening. It’s exciting to see and read so many different stories instead of always more of the same. For any kid it’s fun to discover new – maybe new to them – stories. But also, for kids like Angie when she was young, it’s very affirming to get to read stories about kids like you, who are the heroes getting to go on these big adventures. Nic Blake, and Stuntboy who we just talked about, are both great examples of kids who are getting to be the hero in their story, and that’s so much fun to read."

"It’s the same narrator and listening to this one it felt like she became this other character. This book is also set on Sugar Island, ten years after Firekeeper’s Daughter . The main character from that story is this main character’s aunt, so she’s still there as part of the story and it’s nice getting to see how she fits in as Aunt Daunis. This main character is Perry Firekeeper-Birch, who is 16 and Black and Ojibwe. I really liked how she was such a strong-willed character. And I liked seeing how she was somebody who didn’t really care about school, but cared about the things that were important to her. The idea of repatriating their ancestors and their belongings became really important to her and that was a beautiful thing to see. It was reminding me of stories you hear about kids who, for example, don’t like reading at all until they find something that actually they relate to. Perry Firekeeper-Birch is considered not a great student, but she is the best of her friends at speaking their language and knows so much about the folklore and history and so many different aspects of their culture. She is definitely somebody who will be carrying that forward and fighting for their community. I was so happy to get to read this one. It was definitely the same mix of a coming of age story, but also a lot of adventure and some heavier storylines, for sure. She’s such a strong character, it was great getting to spend time with her. She is such a fighter. And there were parts of it that took me by surprise, some good plot twists. I appreciate reading Young Adult literature for so many reasons, but sometimes it’s nice to remember that they usually figure things out in a good way by the end, as opposed to some adult thrillers where you are left feeling a little bit bereft. It was great hearing the narrator narrating in Ojibwe, and getting to hear the language out loud. Again, one of the great things about audiobooks is that not only are they translating all these emotions on the page for you, but you’re also sometimes getting to hear different languages than the ones you speak. You get to hear them come alive in the narrator’s voice and I think that’s a beautiful thing. So many more great audiobooks, I’m sure, will be coming out. I’m excited to hear more adaptations of graphic novels and illustrated books coming to audio. One of the audiobooks we didn’t talk about today is Sunshine by Jarrett J. Krosoczka, which is a graphic memoir for Young Adults that he also released as an audiobook. It’s about his experience going to a camp for terminally ill children and seriously ill children in Maine, and the week he spent as a counsellor at that camp and the impact it had on his life. He also wrote Hey, Kiddo , a memoir. Jarrett J. Krosoczka obviously has a good grasp of how to turn all of his illustrations into audio. We have a great interview with him that I’d recommend listening to on our podcast, where he talks about the process and how you go about turning something that’s so visual into an audio experience. Sunshine won in a new category for us: audio originals, which either originally came out in audio or are highly adapted audio works. It is another example of a great adaptation where so much thought and care goes into narrating each of the different characters and all the sounds you hear, to help you understand what’s happening in each picture. So as we learn more about how to turn visual media into audio, I’m excited to see more of those coming out, I think it will be really fun."