Narrator Peter Romano's soft voice is at an appropriate volume for Syrian American Kareem, a middle child who feels unseen at home and at school. Kareem's deep feelings are revealed through the verses delivered by Romano. He narrates attentively with careful attention to the football idioms and metaphors that depict Kareem's passion. Romano's ability to shift between Syrian and American accents illuminates how Kareem is caught between cultures: For example, he acts with cruelty toward a recent immigrant his age while going against his own integrity to benefit an American friend. Romano's emotions deepen at the passing of Executive Order 13769, which denies Kareem's grandfather needed entry to the U.S. for medical treatment and sends his mother's home to care for him.
(Verse fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
Duration: 3 hrs, 30 mins
DD ISBN: 9780593944813
Publisher: Listening Library
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Ho perfectly captures Mei Mei’s complex emotions as she endures the most difficult and painful experience of her life.
Narrator Catherine Ho creates a determined voice for 12-year-old Mei Mei, a Chinese American girl living in 1880s San Francisco. Her parents send her to live with her aunt and uncle in Eureka, California, so she can attend school. Ho expresses Mei Mei’s anguish when her aunt and uncle force her to work instead of attending school, as promised. When a co-worker offers to teach Mei Mei to read, it gives her a taste of the freedom she longs for. When violence breaks out in the city, forcing Chinese people to leave, Ho’s narration becomes dramatic and fast-paced, reflecting the intense moment.
Ho perfectly captures Mei Mei’s complex emotions as she endures the most difficult and painful experience of her life. (Verse historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
Duration: 2 hrs, 45 mins
DD ISBN: 9798318537615
Publisher: Tantor Media
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2026
It's 1975, and eleven-year-old Gao Sheng, a Hmong girl, is living in the highlands of Laos in a one-room house with her family. Then they are forced to flee. Narrator Robyn Morales lends a soft, feminine huskiness to the protagonist's voice as she describes the family's journey to a refugee camp, to gentle and thoughtful effect. The listener is transported alongside Gao Sheng to a new world as she reflects on memory, gender, and family relations in her culture; the events that change her life; and conditions in the refugee camp. An afterword provides context about the author's family's real-life experience. Morales' narration is comforting, even as she describes the difficult circumstances of refugees.
(Verse historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
Duration: 5 hrs
DD ISBN: 9798217080861
Publisher: Listening Library
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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