2023 Youth Media Award Winners

Freewater

By: Amina Luqman-Dawson
Narrated by: Cary Hite & Sisi Aisha Johnson
Length: 9 hours 41 minutes

Debut author Amina Luqman-Dawson pens a lyrical, accessible historical middle-grade novel about two enslaved children’s escape from a plantation and the many ways they find freedom.

Under the cover of night, twelve-year-old Homer flees Southerland Plantation with his little sister Ada, unwillingly leaving their beloved mother behind. Much as he... Read more

Iveliz Explains It All

(Newbery Honor Award Winner)

By: Andrea Beatriz Arango
Narrated by: Raquel Merediz
Length: 3 hours 21 minutes

NEWBERY HONOR AWARD WINNER • In this timely and moving novel in verse, a preteen girl navigates seventh grade while facing mental health challenges. A hopeful, poetic story about learning to advocate for the help and understanding you deserve.

"Powerful." —Lisa Fipps, Printz Honor-winning author of Starfish

How do you speak up when it feels like... Read more

The Last Mapmaker

By: Christina Soontornvat
Narrated by: Sura Siu
Length: 7 hours 21 minutes

A Newbery Honor Book
“As assistant to Mangkon’s most celebrated mapmaker, twelve-year-old Sai plays the part of a well-bred young lady with a glittering future. In reality, her father is a conman—and in a kingdom where the status of one’s ancestors dictates their social position, the truth could ruin her. Sai seizes the chance to join an... Read more

Ain't Burned All the Bright

By: Jason Reynolds
Narrated by: Jason Reynolds, Nile Bullock, Tatum Marylin Hall, JaQwan J. Kelly & DePre Owens
Length: 37 minutes

NAMED A 2023 ALA NOTABLE CHILDREN’S RECORDING!

Prepare yourself for something unlike anything: A smash-up of art and text for teens that viscerally captures what it is to be Black. In America. Right Now. Written by #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds.

Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin, had a... Read more

Star Child

A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler

By: Ibi Zoboi
Narrated by: Ibi Zoboi & Robin Miles
Length: 1 hour 30 minutes

From the New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist, a biography in verse and prose of science fiction visionary Octavia Butler.

Acclaimed novelist Ibi Zoboi illuminates the young life of the visionary storyteller Octavia E. Butler in poems and prose. Born into the Space Race, the Red Scare, and the dawning Civil Rights... Read more

Standing in the Need of Prayer

A Modern Retelling of the Classic Spiritual

By: Carole Boston Weatherford
Narrated by: Carole Boston Weatherford
Length: 18 minutes

From an award-winning author comes a stunning and deeply moving book based on the popular spiritual "Standing in the Need of Prayer." The classic lyrics have been reworked to chronicle the milestones, struggles, tragedies, and triumphs of African American history.

This inspirational audiobook encapsulates African American history and invites... Read more

We Deserve Monuments

By: Jas Hammonds
Narrated by: Tamika Katon-Donegal
Length: 10 hours 22 minutes

What's more important: knowing the truth or keeping the peace?
When her family moves to Bardell, Georgia, on the cusp of her senior year, Avery
Anderson is uprooted from DC and thrust into the hostile home of her terminally
ill grandmother, Mama Letty. The tension between Avery’s mom and Mama Letty
makes for a frosty arrival and reveals a... Read more

All My Rage

A Novel

By: Sabaa Tahir
Narrated by: Deepti Gupta, Kamran R. Khan & Kausar Mohammed
Length: 10 hours 24 minutes

“Two thumbs up. I loved how the pacing accelerated as the story unfolded. Intense and heartbreaking, as well as refreshing and angering, in the best of ways. I was hooked, listening to the different voices and learning so much about Pakistani beliefs and traditions. Trigger alerts, though! Also important to hear about how folks live with... Read more

Queer Ducks (and Other Animals)

The Natural World of Animal Sexuality

By: Eliot Schrefer
Narrated by: Joel Froomkin, Dustin Ballard, Hope Newhouse & Neo Cihi
Length: 5 hours 44 minutes

This groundbreaking YA nonfiction title from two-time National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author Eliot Schrefer is a well-researched and teen-friendly exploration of the gamut of queer behaviors observed in animals.A quiet revolution has been underway in recent years, with study after study revealing substantial same-sex... Read more

Icebreaker

By: A.L. Graziadei
Narrated by: Tom Picasso
Length: 8 hours 29 minutes

“I'm going to level with you - everything I know about sports I either learned against my will or from other queer media (hello, Check, Please!) and I still absolutely loved this enemies-to-lovers college hockey romance. I was not quite expecting the relatable representation of anxiety and depression, or such a poignant exploration of what it... Read more

Scout's Honor

By: Lily Anderson
Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
Length: 9 hours 52 minutes

"Frankie Corzo pulls out all the stops as she narrates this clever story of the tea-drinking, pink-clad Ladybird Scouts and the inter-dimensional monsters they must destroy. With impressive emotional range, Corzo brings out Prue's cautious excitement as she connects with the newbies and embraces the thrill of the hunt. Corzo captures her... Read more

Listen

How Evelyn Glennie, a Deaf Girl, Changed Percussion

By: Shannon Stocker
Narrated by: Elle Newlands
Length: 17 minutes

* Schneider Family Book Award Winner *

A gorgeous and empowering picture book biography about Evelyn Glennie, a deaf woman, who became the first full-time solo percussionist in the world. (Cover may vary)

"No. You can't," people said.
But Evelyn knew she could. She had found her own way to listen.

From the moment Evelyn Glennie heard her first note,... Read more

Hummingbird

By: Natalie Lloyd
Narrated by: Natalie Lloyd
Length: 8 hours 22 minutes

I Miss You Stinky Face is now a board book!Bestselling author Natalie Lloyd returns with her most personal book to date, a story about a girl who—armed with her trusty, snazzy wheelchair—refuses to let her brittle bone disease stand in the way of adventure. Read more

Wildoak

By: C. C. Harrington
Length: 6 hours 28 minutes

When the fates of a snow leopard, a child, and an ancient forest collide, the unimaginable can happen. Perfect for fans of Pax and The One and Only Ivan.**Winner of the 2023 Schneider Family Book Award!*** "Nuanced and empowering." - Publisher's Weekly, starred review* "Memorably atmospheric." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review"Immersive." - The... Read more

The Words We Keep

By: Erin Stewart
Narrated by: Phoebe Strole
Length: 9 hours 24 minutes

WINNER OF THE SCHNEIDER FAMILY BOOK AWARD FOR TEENS!

A beautifully realistic, relatable story about mental health—anxiety, perfectionism, depression—and the healing powers of art—perfect for fans of Girl in Pieces and How it Feels to Float. Whatever you struggle with, you are not alone and you are already enough—just the way you are.

It's been... Read more

True Biz

A Novel

By: Sara Novic
Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan & Kaleo Griffith
Length: 10 hours 22 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • A “tender, beautiful and radiantly outraged” (The New York Times Book Review) novel that follows a year of seismic romantic, political, and familial shifts for a teacher and her students at a boarding school for the deaf, from the acclaimed author of Girl at War

“For those who loved the... Read more

Solito

A Memoir

By: Javier Zamora
Narrated by: Javier Zamora
Length: 17 hours 8 minutes

New York Times Bestseller • Read With Jenna Book Club Pick as seen on Today • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography • Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award

A young poet tells the inspiring story of his migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine in this “gripping... Read more

I'm Glad My Mom Died

By: Jennette McCurdy
Narrated by: Jennette McCurdy
Length: 6 hours 25 minutes

“This book is laid out in two parts, before and after the death of the author's mother, and each chapter is a short story. The material tends to be on the darker side, but McCurdy does an excellent job of balancing her vulnerability with humor, while giving the listener a clear vision of what she was going through. I am so glad I chose to read... Read more

Daughter of the Moon Goddess

A Novel

Celestial Kingdom: Book #1

By: Sue Lynn Tan
Narrated by: Natalie Naudus
Length: 15 hours

“This book was an amazing debut. The story of Xingyin just keeps you so invested. Magic, dragons, Chinese folklore, a love story, betrayal and plenty of action. Read more

Babel

Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution

By: R. F. Kuang
Narrated by: Chris Lew Kum Hoi & Billie Fulford-Brown
Length: 21 hours 45 minutes

“This is it. This is the magical school story that adults who grew up in the 90s and 00s have been hoping to find: one that incorporates a beautiful, erudite, delightfully post-steampunk world of magic, but that is ultimately about the hopes and the friendships of young people who came from outside the elite class, and whose lives have been... Read more