Is anyone else starting to go blurry-eyed from all this screen-time? Between distance-learning and then unwinding with gaming and TV time, it would be nice if there was a way to entertain ourselves without the glowing blue light before our eyes. But wait…there is!

 

A great alternative to TV is listening to an audiobook together. I have very fond memories of reading thick chapter books aloud with my cousins on the porch during summer visits. Below are some highlights of NYPL’s e-audiobook collection, organized by author. These are all chapter books and some contain some heavier topics, so I’d say they are best for readers/listeners of at least age 8, depending on the kid.

(Publishers’ blurbs have been included to give you a sense of each book.)

 

JASON REYNOLDS:

• Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks – “A collection of ten short stories that all take place in the same day about kids walking home from school”
• The Track series: Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu – “Ghost wants to be the fastest sprinter on his elite middle school track team, but his past is slowing him down.”
• Miles Morales: A Spiderman Novel – “Miles uncovers a chilling plot, one that puts his friends, his neighborhood, and himself at risk. It’s time for Miles to suit up.”
• As Brave As You – “When two brothers decide to prove how brave they are, everything backfires–literally.”

 

KWAME ALEXANDER:

• The Crossover – “Fourteen-year-old twin basketball stars Josh and Jordan wrestle with highs and lows on and off the court as their father ignores his declining health.”
• Booked – “Twelve-year-old Nick learns the power of words as he wrestles with problems at home, stands up to a bully, and tries to impress the girl of his dreams.”

 

RITA WILLIAMS-GARCIA:

• The Gaither Sisters series: One Crazy Summer, P.S. Be Eleven, Gone Crazy in Alabama – “In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome.”
• Clayton Byrd Goes Underground – “Cool Papa Byrd dies, and Clayton’s mother forbids Clayton from playing the blues. And Clayton knows that’s no way to live.”

 

PAM MUNOZ RYAN:

• Esperanza Rising – “Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California…on the eve of the Great Depression.”
• The Dreamer – “A fictionalized account of the Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda (Neftalí), who grew up a painfully shy child in the rainforests of Chile, ridiculed by his overbearing father.”
• Becoming Naomi Leon – “One evening, everything Naomi has known with Gram and her little brother begins to unravel. Naomi’s mother wants to kidnap her.”

 

SHARON DRAPER:

• Blended – “When her parents, who both get engaged at the same time, get in their biggest fight ever, Isabella doesn’t just feel divided, she feels ripped in two. What does it mean to be half white or half black? To belong to half mom and half dad?”
• Stella By Starlight – “When the Ku Klux Klan’s unwelcome reappearance rattles Stella’s segregated southern town, bravery battles prejudice … As Stella’s community–her world–is upended, she decides to fight fire with fire.”

 

JACQUELINE WOODSON:

• Brown Girl Dreaming – “Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s.”
• Miracle’s Boys – “Twelve-year-old Lafayette’s close relationship with his older brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death of their mother.”

 

CHRISTOPHER PAUL CURTIS:

• The Journey of Little Charlie – “Twelve-year-old Charlie is down on his luck: His dad just died, the share crops are dry, and Cap’n Buck–the most fearsome man in Possum Moan, South Carolina–has come to collect a debt.”
• The Madman of Piney Woods – “Benji and Red couldn’t be more different. They aren’t friends. They don’t even live in the same town. But their fates are entwined.”
• The Mighty Miss Malone
•  –  “The Great Depression hits hard, and there are no jobs for black men. When Deza’s beloved father leaves to find work, Deza, Mother, and her older brother Jimmie go in search of him, and end up in a Hooverville outside Flint, Michigan.”

 

JULIA ALVAREZ:

• The Tia Lola stories / Cuentos de tia Lola – “Although ten-year-old Miguel is at first embarrassed by his colorful aunt, Tia Lola, when she comes to Vermont from the Dominican Republic to stay with his mother, his sister, and him after his parents’ divorce, he learns to love her.”
• Before We Were Free / Antes de ser libres – “By Anita’s 12th birthday in 1960, her Tío Toni has disappeared without a trace, and the secret police terrorize her family because of their suspected opposition of el Trujillo’s dictatorship. Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving all that she once knew behind.”

 

MILDRED TAYLOR:

• The Logan Family Series: The Land, The Well, Song of the Trees, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mississippi Bridge, Let the Circle Be Unbroken, The Friendship, The Road to Memphis, The Gold Cadillac, All the Days Past, All the Days to Come –  “After the Civil War Paul, the son of a white father and a black mother, finds himself caught between two worlds.”

 

NIKKI GRIMES:

• Halfway to Perfect: A Dyamonde Daniel book – “When Dyamonde Daniel’s friend Damaris suddenly becomes a picky eater, it doesn’t take Dyamonde long to figure out the problem: Damaris is secretly dieting because some mean girls teased her about her weight.”
• Jazmin’s Notebook – “Jazmin Shelby was “born with clenched fists”-which is okay, since she’s got a lot of fighting ahead of her. Her dad died a couple of years back, and now that her mom’s in the hospital, it’s just her and her big sister, CeCe.”
• Planet Middle School – “A series of poems describes all the baffling changes at home and at school in twelve-year-old Joylin’s transition from tomboy basketball player to not-quite-girly girl.”

 

SHARON FLAKE:

• The Broken Bike Boy and the Queen of 33rd Street – “At first, charmingly willful, spoiled and precocious 10-year old Queen doesn’t like her new neighbor–humble, naïve, broken bike-riding Leroy. He claims he’s been to Africa, but how can she take this smelly, raggedy boy seriously?”
• The Skin I’m In – “Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, meets a new teacher with a birthmark on her face and makes some discoveries about how to love who she is and what she looks like.”

 

Happy listening!