This week we feature a pair of titles published and made available to SYNC participants in conjunction with the We Need Diverse Books (#WNDB) campaign by authors and others in publishing. Thank you, Listening Library, for lending your support to including these in SYNC this season.

 

Both Fresh Ink and Hope Nation provide listening readers with anthologies performed by ensemble casts of narrators.  Fresh Ink includes 10 short stories, a graphic novel, and a one-act play.  The anthology was edited by Lamar Giles and the writers include several represented in previous SYNC seasons, including Melissa de la Cruz, Daniel José Older, and Walter Dean Myers.  Guy Lockard, Kim Mai Guest, and Bahni Turpin provide much of the performance work, with some of the authors reading their own contributions.  Teens will be grateful to meet all of these authors and narrators, all of whom have more works to explore.

Hope Nation, edited by Rose Brock, brings listeners nonfiction pieces in the form of autobiographical essays by an array of young adult authors. Angie Thomas, Libba Bray, David Levithan, Jason Reynolds, and Nic Stone are among the nearly two dozen writers who share with teen listeners the various ways they have each found hope when things feel nearly hopeless. Narrators who have worked with SYNC in previous seasons and return to provide the performances of this collection include Michael Crouch, Nancy Wu, Kyla Garcia, and a dozen more,

This week’s audiobooks offer robust variety in many ways:  genre, author, performer. What a great way to become acquainted with the rich world of contemporary audiobooks as well as the #WNDB organization!