This summer, SYNC will be providing two free teen audiobooks each week from May 5th to August 11th. Each week will focus on a specific theme, pairing a classic YA title with a more modern YA title. This week starts Thursday, June 30th with The Omnivore’s Dilemma: The Secrets Behind What You Eat, Young Readers Edition and Grasshopper Jungle .
MacLeod Andrews offers such an enthusiastically engaging narration that it almost doesn’t matter that the subject of this audiobook is fascinating and compelling in its own right. It explores where exactly our food comes from and what its ecological, economic, political, and social implications are. In this Young Readers Edition, the editors have toned down some of the more technical discussions and rephrased some sections (“voting with your fork,” for example). But overall, the content and impact are left in force. Andrews varies his tone and pacing nicely. When the author seeks to be ironic, he adds the appropriate inflection. When the author is surprised, so are the narrator–and the listener. Adults should enjoy this production as well as younger listeners. The library owns the book version as well as the ebook version.
Oh, the complications of being a teenager! Falling in love with your two best friends, one female, one male, then accidentally unleashing a plague that causes the end of the world. Philip Church narrates Smith’s novel with blunt tones, presenting a Vonnegut-like tale with straightforward prose. It works perfectly. The outlandishness of people turning into giant, murderous praying mantises is somehow perfectly balanced by the painful honesty of the teenage heart. Church takes the short, declarative sentences and, by simply performing them with a rapid, matter-of-fact delivery, captures the quick wit and sly thoughtfulness of the novel. Although Church has great energy and charm, be warned: The story’s narrator swears like a sailor. The library owns the book version of this title.
These two titles will be available to download for free this week only (from 6/30 to 07/07) at the SYNC website. The theme for this week is “Consuming nature, real and imaginary.”