This short and sweet audiobook offers a welcoming invitation from Alok Vaid-Menon, an Indian-American writer and performance artist, to learn more about gender and how to move beyond it. Vaid-Menon matter-of-factly explains the cultural systems that have shaped our perception of gender, and how they are rooted in power dynamics rather than in personal expression and identity. Their straightforward narration feels deeply warm as they dissect myths around gender and share their own experiences. Not overly intense in tone, Vaid-Menon uses deliberate pacing to indicate the gravity of the current situation surrounding gender identity. Their voice and perspective offer valuable lessons and stories on gender that are packaged in a pleasingly short yet complete-feeling audiobook.
(Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: 2020
Duration: 1 hr
DD ISBN: 9780593209042
Publisher: Listening Library
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
In 1832 thirteen-year-old Charlotte Doyle is sailing from Liverpool to Rhode Island to rejoin her family. Shocked to discover that the families who were to have been both guardians and companions will not accompany her, Charlotte embarks on a journey filled with terror and swashbuckling adventure. The first-person narrative makes this Newbery Honor book a wonderful choice for recording. O'Karma's reading, with its hint of cross-gender differentiation, allows the listener to feel as if Charlotte Doyle herself were relating the tale. This story should be particularly alluring to adolescent girls although the fast-paced action and the nautical setting will also appeal to male listeners. Ages 12-adult.
Ages 12+Pub Date: N/A
Duration: 6 hrs
Publisher: Recorded Books Inc.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Narrator Jaime Lamchick's bright, engaging performance is a great fit for this young adult audiobook about humanity's complicated space age relationship with planet Earth's moon. Listeners are launched into the competitive race to the moon between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1950s-60s, setting the stage for technological and scientific advances, and the complexities of international treaties between spacefaring nations. Coauthors Levinson and Swanson take subject matter a teenage audience might not usually pay attention to--international legal agreements--and pairs them with real-world disagreements and their consequences among nations. Lamchick's zippy performance, reminiscent of old-time radio broadcasts, plays out scenes involving imaginary astronauts squabbling over lunar resources to show listeners how treaties might help resolve actual space conflicts.
(Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: 2025
Duration: 5 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9798217021093
Publisher: Listening Library
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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