The Rising Reads

The Only Plane in the Sky

An Oral History of September 11, 2001

By: Garrett M. Graff
Narrated by: A Full 45-Person Cast
Length: 15 hours 54 minutes

“I absolutely believe this book should be listened to, instead of read. Each of the interviews and testimonies has a different voice, making this experience extremely intimate. I thought I knew. I had no idea. My memory is made up of all the big moments shared by the news. Planes, towers, explosions, the Pentagon, flight 93. All Images,... Read more

Come From Away: Welcome to the Rock

An Inside Look at the Hit Musical

By: Irene Sankoff & David Hein
Narrated by: Laurence Maslon, Irene Sankoff, David Hein, Petrina Bromley, Geno Carr, De'Lon Grant, Joel Hatch, Harry Judge, Chad Kimball, Erin Moon, Q. Smith, Astrid Van Wieren & Jim Walton
Length: 3 hours 57 minutes

Come From Away: Welcome to the Rock - a fully illustrated companion volume to the hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, featuring the book and lyrics for the first time in print, backstage stories and the real history behind the show's events, character design sketches, and songs that ended up on the cutting room floor.

The Tony Award-winning... Read more

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

By: Jonathan Safran Foer
Narrated by: Barbara Caruso, Jeff Woodman & Richard Ferrone
Length: 10 hours 56 minutes

Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of... Read more

Nine, Ten

A September 11 Story

By: Nora Raleigh Baskin
Narrated by: Piper Goodeve
Length: 3 hours 45 minutes

Ask anyone: September 11, 2001, was serene and lovely, a perfect day—until a plane struck the World Trade Center.



But right now it is a few days earlier, and four kids in different parts of the country are going about their lives. Sergio, who lives in Brooklyn, is struggling to come to terms with the absentee father he hates and the grandmother... Read more

Towers Falling

By: Jewell Parker Rhodes
Narrated by: Jewell Parker Rhodes
Length: 4 hours 10 minutes

From award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes comes a powerful novel set fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks in a classroom of students who cannot remember the event but live through the aftermath of its cultural shift.
When her fifth-grade teacher hints that a series of lessons about home and community will culminate with one big answer about... Read more

Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero

By: Saadia Faruqi
Narrated by: Vikas Adam
Length: 8 hours 26 minutes

At a time when we are all asking questions about identity, grief, and how to stand up for what is right, this book by the author of A Thousand Questions will hit home with young readers who love Hena Khan and Varian Johnson—or anyone struggling to understand recent U.S. history and how it still affects us today.   Yusuf Azeem has spent all his... Read more

Other Words for Home

By: Jasmine Warga
Narrated by: Vaneh Assadourian
Length: 3 hours 49 minutes

“The new words, tasting like America, on our lips." A beautifully-written story of a young Syrian girl's journey to Cincinnati and learning to live her everyday life of a school kid in America. Jude struggles to be brave in making new friends, in auditioning for the school play and in thinking of her brother and father back home. Read more

Internment

By: Samira Ahmed
Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
Length: 11 hours 17 minutes

“An emotionally charged, incredibly well written story of what it would be like if internment camps were brought back for this nation's Muslim citizens. Beautifully narrated, Internment is gripping and powerful, this is a must-listen for all ages. Read more

Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know

By: Samira Ahmed
Narrated by: Leila Buck & Soneela Nankani
Length: 10 hours 27 minutes

Told in alternating narratives that bridge centuries, the latest novel from New York Times bestselling
author Samira Ahmed traces the lives of two young women fighting to write their own stories and escape
the pressure of cultural expectations in worlds too long defined by men.

It’s August in Paris and 17-year-old Khayyam Maquet—American, French,... Read more

Darius the Great Is Not Okay

By: Adib Khorram
Narrated by: Michael Levi Harris
Length: 7 hours 33 minutes

“Darius is struggling. He doesn't fit in at school. He has trouble making friends. He's bullied. And to top that off, he's plagued by horribly negative thoughts including the very painful feeling that his father doesn't like him and wishes to replace him with his younger sister. Darius, indeed, is not okay. Everything changes when Darius meets... Read more

How It All Blew Up

By: Arvin Ahmadi
Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Ali Afkhami, Nikki Massoud & Nazanin Nour
Length: 6 hours 3 minutes

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda goes to Italy in Arvin Ahmadi's newest incisive look at identity and what it means to find yourself by running away.

Eighteen-year-old Amir Azadi always knew coming out to his Muslim family would be messy--he just didn't think it would end in an airport interrogation room. But when faced with a failed... Read more

The Bad Muslim Discount

A Novel

By: Syed M. Masood
Narrated by: Pej Vahdat & Hend Ayoub
Length: 12 hours 23 minutes

“An amazing debut novel from Syed M. Masood. The narration brought the words to life, and I found myself playing parts of it to my coworkers because I was laughing so hard. Masood takes an engaging, insightful look into the Muslim-American community in the 90's by following two very different families in the move to the United States. It's a... Read more

See No Stranger

A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

The Revolutionary Love Project

By: Valarie Kaur
Narrated by: Valarie Kaur
Length: 13 hours 14 minutes

#1 LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR THE DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE • An urgent manifesto and a dramatic memoir of awakening, this is the story of revolutionary love.

“In a world stricken with fear and turmoil, Valarie Kaur shows us how to summon our deepest wisdom.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love
 
How do we love in a time... Read more

Muslim Girl

A Coming of Age

By: Amani Al-Khatahtbeh
Narrated by: Amani Al-Khatahtbeh
Length: 3 hours 48 minutes

In this New York Times Editors’ Choice, the brilliant founder of MuslimGirl.com shares her harrowing and candid account of what it’s like to be a young Muslim woman in the wake of 9/11, during the never-ending war on terror, and through the Trump era of casual racism.

At nine years old, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh watched from her home in New Jersey as... Read more