Magic, mystery, and history meet when the old-fashioned spectacles Winna's grandfather gives her grant wishes. Narrator Joniece Abbott-Pratt depicts Winna's youth with a bright voice. Her slightly hesitant delivery is central to Winna's tone of intelligence tempered by having to be polite to a world of fools. Winna has enough worries with her mom being sick in the hospital and keeping her little sister in line while they stay with their grandparents. Now she has to team up with her pugnacious cousin to find a long-lost relative before a curse kills her mother. Abbott-Pratt fills the 1960s small-town setting with vibrant characters, accents, and tender emotion. There is nothing dated about the lessons this audiobook teaches about racism and trauma.
(Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
Duration: 5 hrs, 15 mins
DD ISBN: 9798350845907
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Narrator Michael Boatman is once again a master of vocal sound effects in this third installment of the Skunk and Badger series: the ErrrrrRRRRR of a rock tumbler tumbling, the scutch-scutch of snowshoes moving over snow, the Beed-el-LOO-bing! of a banjo being plucked. Raising two precocious young rats in Aunt Lula's brownstone, Skunk and Badger find themselves in way, way over their heads. And how is Badger going to get his article for ROCK HOUND WEEKLY finished with all of the distractions?! Boatman captures the mayhem in a high-energy, fully committed performance, differentiating the animal characters, emphasizing the many all-caps words and phrases, and using his voice to paint a picture of a family life that's chaotic, cozy, and loving.
(Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
Duration: 4 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9781649041180
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Narrators Madeleine Curry and Valerie Gutierrez provide lively voices for a story that takes place in a multiverse. Two girls live in parallel versions of a town called Rockdale. Twelve-year-old Piper lives with her parents and her robot dog, Roody. Raisa lives in the parallel Rockdale with parents who are scientists. Each girl is on a mission: Raisa transports herself to Piper's Rockdale to prove her mother's theory of parallel worlds, while Piper is working to free her parents from the force field that is trapping them in their home. As the chapters alternate, Curry and Gutierrez give the girls expressive voices that make them believable. Their pacing adds to the excitement of the story, keeping listeners engaged.
(Science fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781668651773
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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