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, July 21st with Mandela: An Audio History by Nelson Mandela and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
This remarkable audio history begins with Nelson Mandela’s voice proclaiming on a crackly recording his five immortal words: “I am prepared to die.” The words were uttered when he gave a four-hour speech testifying at his own trial in 1964. Throughout this compelling history, Desmond Tutu is accompanied by multiple voices and newsreels in support of Mandela’s life story. Music such as Miriam Makeba’s “Make Us One” and “Beware, Verwored” (one of South Africa’s prime ministers) is sprinkled throughout. Sound effects like doors closing at Robben Island or prisoners doing hard labor at the quarry personalize the story. President de Klerk’s announcement of Mandela’s freedom and Mandela’s inauguration as president conclude this look at a unique history. The Algonquin Library does not own this particular title, but it is owned by other libraries in our system, and we would be happy to request a copy for you as well.
Okonkwo, driven by blinding ambition, finally overcomes his father’s legacy of shame. Or does he? In the Ibo village of Umuofia at a time when the tribe is intact, the gods are respected, and planting yams is a man’s principal responsibility, Achebe tells, above all, a man’s story. Like Okonkwo’s life, it is clean, hard and beautiful, but finally painful when the orderly, peaceful village life comes crashing into Christianity. Peter Francis James’s bass voice resonates perfectly with the elevated diction and multiple voices of Achebe’s novel. It’s a firm, sometimes furious voice, when speaking the powerful Okonkwo, but yielding and playful with his daughter, Ezinma. Full of melodic richness, James projects Achebe’s genuinely African cadences with a power and dignity equal to his vision, giving us finally in audio the most moving picture ever of African village life by an African. The Library owns this in book format as well.
These titles will be available to download for free during this week only (7/21 to 7/28) at the SYNC website. The theme for this week is “Classic voices from Africa in the 20th century.”