Authors Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter give kids insight into the writing process. The conversational tone of their essays on topics like generating ideas, plotting, and revision is reinforced by their own reading of their work. Listeners will get a sense of each personality from Mazer’s subdued reading and Potter’s vivacious one. The contrast adds interest to the production as a whole and makes the authors seem that much more real, giving their advice weight. Mazer and Potter freely share insecurities and doubts, as well as advice on how to overcome them, along with practical tips and writing exercises. This is a useful and entertaining guide for writers of any age.
Ages 10+Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2010
Duration: 6 hrs
Publisher: Full Cast Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Riveting. Young adult listeners will learn a lot from Swanson’s overview of John F. Kennedy’s early years, election, and administration—as well as from his minute-by-minute account of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas in November 1963. Will Patton is purposeful and precise as he narrates. With the you-are-there style, listeners ride in Kennedy’s limousine, look down from the Texas School Book Depository, move through the halls of the Dallas police station, fly with the shocked and grief-stricken entourage in Air Force One, and walk with the funeral cortege. With brisk and urgent pacing, Patton voices each factual nugget and lets it hang momentarily before pressing on to the next. Other features include audio excerpts from Kennedy’s inaugural speech and a list of landmarks listeners may want to visit.
Young AdultPub Date: Sept. 24, 2013
Duration: 4 hrs
Publisher: Scholastic Audiobooks
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Narrators Jeff Cummings and Adenrele Ojo give refreshing energy to 14 wide-ranging essays about the global upheaval and social shifts of the year 1968. Both narrators provide a scholarly tone to the broad- reaching discussion of social movements like the Cultural Revolution and the Prague Spring. They strike an introspective tone for the more personal stories, one focusing on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, assassination and another reveling in the freedom of riding bikes across the country. Elizabeth Partridge's poem "Nightly News," woven throughout, captures the mounting body counts of the War in Vietnam. Though sophisticated and balanced, the diversity of this anthology suffers some with only two narrators. Overall, though, the authors add helpful context to a year bursting with newsworthy moments fit for comparison to our own time.
(Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
Duration: 6 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9781978644236
Publisher: Brilliance Audio/ Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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