Celebrate Banned Books

The Poet X

By: Elizabeth Acevedo
Narrated by: Elizabeth Acevedo
Length: 3 hours 30 minutes

“While the print version of this book is still powerful, the audiobook is truly how it's meant to be experienced. Elizabeth Acevedo narrates her own work, a novel-in-verse about an Afro-Latina girl navigating young adulthood and all that entails. It is an ode to slam poetry and how difficult it can be to grow up in a world that wants to stifle... Read more

Pet

By: Akwaeke Emezi
Narrated by: Christopher Myers
Length: 5 hours 32 minutes

National Book Award Finalist

Stonewall Book Award Winner

"[A] beautiful, genre-expanding debut...Pet is a nesting doll of creative possibilities." (The New York Times)

The award-winning, genre-defying novel by the New York Times best-selling author of The Death of Vivek Oji that explores themes of identity and justice and asks: How do you share the... Read more

Homegoing

A novel

By: Yaa Gyasi
Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
Length: 13 hours 10 minutes

“Homegoing is an epic narrative that is sure to become a treasured staple. Two sisters in Ghana are marked by fiery tragedy: one is married off to an English slave trader, and the other is sold to be a slave in America. The story follows their descendants generation by generation. Homegoing will break your heart over and over, impress you with... Read more

Monday's Not Coming

By: Tiffany D. Jackson
Narrated by: Imani Parks
Length: 10 hours 6 minutes

“My heart ached as the teenaged protagonist Claudia struggled to make sense of why her best friend Monday is simply gone. As Claudia reaches out to peers and adults again and again, you can feel her frustration with things out of her control. The actor on the audio book was a perfect choice to narrate. The book serves as an important reminder... Read more

This Book Is Anti-Racist

By: Tiffany Jewell
Narrated by: Tiffany Jewell
Length: 2 hours 46 minutes

What is racism?
What is anti-racism? 
How can you stand up and take action?

In this engaging audio version of the New York Times best-selling This Book is Anti-Racist, young people will learn how to take action against racism and injustice.  The audiobook explores identity, history, and the language surrounding racism as each chapter naturally... Read more

This Is My America

By: Kim Johnson
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 9 hours 34 minutes

“I love this book! If you love activists and stories of determination and overcoming adversity this is the book for you! Read more

You Should See Me in a Crown

By: Leah Johnson
Narrated by: Alaska Jackson
Length: 7 hours 18 minutes

“You Should See Me in a Crown is a quintessential prom story with some twists—namely that the protagonist is a queer Black girl. Liz Lighty dreams of following in her late mother’s footsteps and attending Pennington. But she can’t go to college without financial aid, and the music scholarship she was counting on fell through. She has no other... Read more

Sister Outsider

Essays and Speeches

Crossing Press Feminist: Book #1

By: Audre Lorde
Narrated by: Robin Eller
Length: 7 hours 31 minutes

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action... Read more

How Beautiful We Were

A Novel

By: Imbolo Mbue
Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Janina Edwards, Dion Graham, JD Jackson, Allyson Johnson & Lisa Renee Pitts
Length: 14 hours 7 minutes

A fearless young woman from a small African village starts a revolution against an American oil company in this sweeping, inspiring novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Behold the Dreamers.

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, People • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The... Read more

Ghost Boys

By: Jewell Parker Rhodes
Narrated by: Miles Harvey
Length: 2 hours 51 minutes

A heartbreaking and powerful story about a black boy killed by a police officer, drawing connections through history, from award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes.

Only the living can make the world better. Live and make it better.

Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he... Read more

Pushout

The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

By: Monique W. Morris
Narrated by: Kristyl Dawn Tift
Length: 8 hours 54 minutes

Fifteen-year-old Diamond stopped going to school the day she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school.



Just... Read more

They Both Die at the End

They Both Die at the End Series: Book #1

By: Adam Silvera
Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Robbie Daymond & Bahni Turpin
Length: 8 hours 29 minutes

“Beautiful, heart wrenching YA with male protagonists and bittersweet and complex relationships. Read more

Identical

By: Ellen Hopkins
Narrated by: Laura Flanagan
Length: 8 hours 43 minutes

In the latest hard-hitting YA novel by the New York Times bestselling author, sixteen-year-old identical twin girls must come to terms with their abusive father.



Kaeleigh and Raeanne are sixteen-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for Congress. Everything on the surface of their... Read more

Fallout

By: Ellen Hopkins
Narrated by: Candace Thaxton, Rebekkah Ross, Jonathan Todd Ross & Kirby Heyborne
Length: 9 hours 5 minutes

This gripping conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Crank trilogy features a refreshed look and a trade paperback trim size.

Hunter, Autumn, and Summer—three of Kristina Snow’s five children—live in different homes, with different guardians and different last names. They share only a predisposition for addiction and a host of troubled... Read more

The Glass Castle

A Memoir

By: Jeannette Walls
Narrated by: Jeannette Walls
Length: 10 hours 25 minutes

THE BELOVED #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER—FROM THE AUTHOR OF HANG THE MOON

The extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, “nothing short of spectacular” (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world’s most gifted storytellers.

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply... Read more

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By: Maya Angelou
Narrated by: Maya Angelou
Length: 10 hours 10 minutes

Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute... Read more

All Boys Aren't Blue

A Memoir-Manifesto

By: George M. Johnson
Narrated by: George M. Johnson
Length: 5 hours 11 minutes

“After listening to this book, I was outraged to learn how widely banned it is across the country - This story needs to be told and shared. Read more

Gender Queer

A Memoir

By: Maia Kobabe
Narrated by: Maia Kobabe, Trini Alvarado, Stephen Graybill, Phoebe Kobabe, Jeremy Carlisle Parker & Full Cast
Length: 1 hour 58 minutes

2020 ALA Alex Award Winner
2020 Stonewall — Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book

The ground-breaking, bestselling graphic novel is now available on audio.

In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only... Read more

This Book Is Gay

By: Juno Dawson
Narrated by: Christopher Solimene
Length: 6 hours 47 minutes

Lesbian. Bisexual. Queer. Transgender. Straight. Curious. This book is for everyone, regardless of gender or sexual preference. This book is for anyone who's ever dared to wonder. This book is for you.



There's a long-running joke that, after "coming out," a lesbian, gay guy, bisexual, or trans person should receive a membership card and... Read more

When They Call You a Terrorist

A Black Lives Matter Memoir

By: Patrisse Cullors & asha bandele
Narrated by: Angela Davis & Patrisse Cullors
Length: 6 hours 12 minutes

"Narrating her own work, Patrisse Khan-Cullors shares the salient moments of her life that led her to become a founder of Black Lives Matter...pain, frustration, and joy [emblazon] each word she utters." — AudioFile Magazine

This program is read by Patrisse Cullors and includes a bonus conversation.

The emotional and powerful story of one of the... Read more