Young Adult Readers Archives - Page 2 of 63

Cinder & Glass by Melissa de la Cruz [in School Library Journal]

20 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Audio, European, Fiction, Filipina/o American, French, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz remarkably has two 2022 Cinderella adaptations: The Stolen Slippers, introducing not-evil stepsisters, and this, in which “Cendrillon” is a Lady in King Louis XIV’s Versailles Court. So much of de la Cruz’s exceptional retelling – with even a nod to...

A Thousand Steps into Night by Traci Chee [in School Library Journal]

19 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Grace Rolek, who was part of the audio cast for Traci Chee’s We Are Not Free, makes her solo debut with this rousing Japanese-inspired epic. In fictional Awara, where demons, spirits, magical beings, oh – and humans – all coexist, 17-year-old Miuko is deemed “average...

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin [in Booklist]

02 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Jewish, Korean American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In her fifth adult title, Gabrielle Zevin (Young Jane Young, 2017) impressively interweaves multiple threads that twist and tangle around what is essentially a decades-long love story. Jennifer Kim ciphers most of the narration, deftly distinguishing the main three players, with a brief interlude voiced...

Which Side Are You On by Ryan Lee Wong [in Booklist]

01 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In the short opening paragraph introducing a young man watching his mother approach the LAX curb in her new Prius, debut novelist Ryan Lee Wong manages to pack in generation gaps, climate change, brutal colonialism, and “let[ting] go of that ancestral sh*t sooner or later.” Columbia...

My Nest of Silence by Matt Faulkner [in Booklist]

17 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW After learning of Europe’s Nazi concentration camps as a child, Matt Faulkner also discovered how Americans of Japanese descent were unjustly imprisoned during WWII, a revelation made more urgent because of family connections: his great-aunt Adeline; her daughter, Mary; and Mary’s children were held...

A Career in Books: A Novel about Friends, Money, and the Occasional Duck Bun by Kate Gavino [in Booklist]

12 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Nina, Silvia, and Shirin’s “now-mythical friendship origin story” began at NYU in their freshman writing workshop. As the only Asian Americans, they initially avoided each other, until a class trip to the New York Public Library led to a coincidental bathroom break that led to...

Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min [in Shelf Awareness]

11 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Lio Min's soulful debut novel, Beating Heart Baby, highlights music, art, and the love of family – by birth, yes, but more significantly by circumstance and choice. Their emotive narrative spotlights Filipino American artist Santi and Korean Japanese American musician Suwa, playing out a tumultuous relationship...

Notes from a Young Black Chef (Adapted for Young Adults) by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein [in School Library Journal]

06 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nigerian American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Narrator Malik Rashad isn’t quite Kwame Onwuachi, who ideally narrated his original 2019 memoir – but here, that’s not necessarily a liability for younger audiences who might need a smidge more animation. Rashad affectingly channels Onwuachi, the self-described “black kid from the Bronx ...

Disability Visibility (Adapted for Young Adults): First-Person Stories for Today edited by Alice Wong [in School Library Journal]

05 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

“This is the book I wish I had as a teenager,” disability rights activist Alice Wong reveals, choosing 17 stories for this adaptation from the 37 in her 2020 original. As editor, Wong again reads her introduction. While none could dispute that Wong is a...

The Lemon Tree (Young Readers’ Edition): An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan [in School Library Journal]

31 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Arab, Audio, Biography, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost, Young Adult Readers

“I wanted to write a history book in disguise,” journalist and professor Sandy Tolan announces, “and to make it feel, throughout, like a good novel. Even though the story is true.” Tolan voiced his original; here Rami Medina makes his audiobook debut: his rich, youthful...

Fashionopolis (Young Readers Edition): The Secrets Behind the Clothes We Wear by Dana Thomas [in School Library Journal]

30 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Paris-based journalist Dana Thomas adapts her 2019 erudite exposé for younger audiences, and also (again) narrates. For a writer careful enough to include phonetic guidelines – ”Maria Cornejo (pronounced “Cor-nay-ho”),” for example – her inconsistencies surprise: Ikeda is not “ai-kee-dah”; “Iris (pronounced “EEE-reece”)” is followed...

Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Young Readers Edition by Anton Treuer [in School Library Journal]

29 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW “Indians. We are so often imagined, but so infrequently well understood,” Anton Treuer’s opening sentence reads. As a Princeton-educated, Ojibwe professor with “one foot in the wigwam and one in the ivory tower,” Treuer “cannot speak for all Indians,” but he’s ready with “specific...

The Con Artists by Luke Healy [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Irish, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The prologue alone to Luke Healy's sharp, skilled The Con Artists is a wow-inducing example of show-don't-tell genius. "Oh, hello. I'm Luke Healy, the author of this book. No big deal," he modestly introduces himself. As he reads "a prepared statement" – the usual "entirely...

Mighty Justice (Young Readers’ Edition): The Untold Story of Civil Rights Trailblazer Dovey Johnson Roundtree by Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe, adapted by Jabari Asim [in School Library Journal]

24 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Until her death at 104 in 2018, Dovey Johnson Roundtree—“a Black woman born in the early twentieth century in the Jim Crow South” – shared a remarkable 24-year friendship with Katie McCabe, a self-described “white woman who came of age in 1950s Washington, DC.” Theirs...

The Impossible Climb (Young Readers Adaptation): Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and a Climber’s Life by Mark Synnott, adapted by Hampton Synnott [in School Library Journal]

23 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Biography, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

The Synnott couple compress husband Mark’s 2019 bestseller to share with younger readers Alex Honnold’s thought-to-be-impossible feat of solo free climbing – as in no ropes, no harness! – Freerider, El Capitan’s notorious 3,000-feet vertical route in Yosemite National Park. Perhaps aware that adults might argue...

A Rebel in Auschwitz: The True Story of the Resistance Hero Who Fought the Nazis from Inside the Camp by Jack Fairweather [in School Library Journal]

22 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Biography, European, Jewish, Nonfiction, Polish, Repost, Young Adult Readers

What’s immediately striking here is the casting of a woman to narrate: the titular rebel is the Polish hero – a man – Witold Pilecki. So, too, is the author, Jack Fairweather, who adapted his 2019 award-winning The Volunteer. The reasons for choosing a female...

The Burning (Young Readers Edition): Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 by Tim Madigan, adapted by Hilary Beard [in School Library Journal]

21 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Two decades after Tim Madigan wrote The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 about “the nation’s worst race war,” award-winning writer Hilary Beard heightens the event’s significance with amplified awareness of social justice, systemic racism, and critical race theory in this young...

Killers of the Flower Moon: Adapted for Young Readers: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann [in School Library Journal]

20 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW David Grann’s adaptation of his 2017 mega-bestselling title of the same name has lost none of the urgency of the astounding original. Once upon a time, “the Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world,” a result of the oil beneath...

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop (Young Adult Edition): A Hip-Hop History by Jeff Chang and Dave “Davey D” Cook [in School Library Journal]

19 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Over a decade and a half after its 2005 publication, the young readers edition of historian/journalist/music critic Jeff Chang’s seminal Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation seems almost overdue. The enhanced collaboration with historian/journalist/professor Dave "Davey D" Cook adds new generations...

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Boy by Emmanuel Acho [in School Library Journal]

18 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW For audiences familiar with the former NFL linebacker’s viral YouTube series, Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, or those who might have already listened to the Emmanuel Acho-narrated audiobook of the same title, be assured that Landon Woodson’s performance in this young readers edition...

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