Banned and Challenged Books

Melissa (previously published as GEORGE)

By: Alex Gino
Narrated by: Jamie Clayton
Length: 3 hours 16 minutes

“This book, which the author is now calling Melissa’s Story, is tender and wholesome—about a young transgender girl who wants to play Charlotte in her 4th grade production of Charlotte’s Web. Read more

All Boys Aren't Blue

A Memoir-Manifesto

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

This program is read by the author.

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue explores their childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia.

A New York Times Bestseller!
Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, Today Show, and MSNBC feature stories

From... Read more

King and the Dragonflies (Scholastic Gold)

By: Kacen Callender
Length: 5 hours 3 minutes

“Kingston (King) James and his parents are grieving the loss of Khalid-- King's older brother. When Khalid was alive and the two shared a bedroom, he would talk in his sleep, telling his younger brother stories about the universe and its magic. King continues to see Khalid in his dreams, and is convinced Khalid has transformed into a dragonfly.... Read more

The Testaments

The Sequel to The Handmaid's Tale

By: Margaret Atwood
Narrated by: Ann Dowd, Bryce Dallas Howard, Mae Whitman, Derek Jacobi, Tantoo Cardinal & Margaret Atwood
Length: 13 hours 17 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE • The Testaments is a modern masterpiece, a powerful novel that can be read on its own or as a companion to Margaret Atwood’s classic, The Handmaid’s Tale.

More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on... Read more

In the Dream House

A Memoir

By: Carmen Maria Machado
Narrated by: Carmen Maria Machado
Length: 5 hours 28 minutes

“Welcome to the Dream House in this daring new kind of memoir that defies boundaries and boldly discards the conventions of genre. Inside, Carmen Maria Machado bares her soul in all of its pain and beauty, offering an intimate and profoundly vulnerable look at her own life, love, and sexuality. Machado has a gift for exposing the raw nerves and... Read more

Heavy

An American Memoir

By: Kiese Laymon
Narrated by: Kiese Laymon
Length: 6 hours 17 minutes

“Telling the truth has always been a radical and political act, but Kiese Laymon writes in Heavy with a rare, vulnerable unity of personal urgency and political clarity. This is a story about how our country’s lies and thefts weigh heavily on the hearts and souls of its black mothers and sons. About how dishonesty about white supremacy, money,... 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

The Hate U Give

By: Angie Thomas
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 11 hours 50 minutes

“This bestselling, powerful young adult novel about social justice and one teen girl's effort to fight for what is right, will leave you breathless. The narration by Bahni Turpin is hands down the best I've ever heard. This is such an important book it should be required reading for life in general. Or listening. Definitely listening. Read more

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

By: Stephen Chbosky
Narrated by: Noah Galvin
Length: 6 hours 23 minutes

“This is one of my favorite books. I read it at a time when adolescence, finding your tribe and discovering who you are were all starting to take shape for me. And then I went and grew up and named my bookstore after it! Read more

Between the World and Me

By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Narrated by: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Length: 3 hours 35 minutes

“In this short and powerful book, Coates writes to his 15-year old son about his experience of being a black man in America. Cannot recommend enough! Read more

All American Boys

By: Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely
Narrated by: Guy Lockard & Keith Nobbs
Length: 6 hours 35 minutes

A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, and recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature.

In this New York Times bestselling novel, two teens—one black, one white—grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided... Read more

I Am Malala

The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

By: Malala Yousafzai
Narrated by: Archie Panjabi
Length: 9 hours 54 minutes

A MEMOIR BY THE YOUNGEST RECIPIENT OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

As seen on Netflix with David Letterman
"I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday."

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to... Read more

The Kite Runner

By: Khaled Hosseini
Narrated by: Khaled Hosseini
Length: 12 hours 3 minutes

A Stunning Novel of Hope and Redemption

Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, The Kite Runner is the unforgettable and beautifully told story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul. Raised in the same household and sharing the same wet nurse, Amir and Hassan grow up in different worlds: Amir... Read more

Two Boys Kissing

By: David Levithan
Narrated by: David Levithan
Length: 6 hours 14 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • STONEWALL HONOR BOOK  •  LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD WINNER  •  NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST

"You have to read this.” —Rainbow Rowell, bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and Carry On

From the New York Times bestselling author of Every Day, this love story of shared humanity and history Hypable calls "an... Read more

More Happy Than Not

By: Adam Silvera
Narrated by: Ramón De Ocampo
Length: 8 hours 19 minutes

In his twisty, gritty, profoundly moving debut—called “mandatory reading” by the New York Times—Adam Silvera brings to life a charged, dangerous near-future summer in the Bronx.

In the months after his father’s suicide, it’s been tough for 16-year-old Aaron Soto to find happiness again—but he’s still gunning for it. With the support of his... Read more

Ash

By: Malinda Lo
Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
Length: 6 hours 45 minutes

Cinderella retold
In the wake of her father’s death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother.
Consumed with grief, she finds her only joy by the light of the dying hearth fire,
re-reading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the
fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and... Read more

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces

By: Isabel Quintero
Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
Length: 7 hours 57 minutes

Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2014

July 24
My mother named me Gabriella, after my grandmother who, coincidentally, didn't want to meet me when I was born because my mother was unmarried, and therefore living in sin. My mom has told me the story many, many, MANY, times of how, when she confessed to my grandmother that she was pregnant with... Read more

Ordinary Hazards

A Memoir

By: Nikki Grimes
Narrated by: Nikki Grimes
Length: 4 hours 36 minutes

In her own voice, acclaimed author and poet Nikki Grimes explores the truth of a harrowing childhood in a compelling and moving memoir in verse. Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed... Read more

Black Girl Unlimited

The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard

By: Echo Brown
Narrated by: Echo Brown
Length: 8 hours 29 minutes

This program is read by the author

"Just brilliant."—Kirkus Reviews

Heavily autobiographical and infused with magical realism, Black Girl Unlimited fearlessly explores the intersections of poverty, sexual violence, depression, racism, and sexism—all through the arc of a transcendent coming-of-age story for fans of Renee Watson's Piecing Me... Read more

The Bluest Eye

By: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

“Toni Morrison was a visionary. This, her first novel, was my first foray into her work, and I found it approachable, yet deep with meaning. It borrows its structure from a children’s Dick and Jane story, which Toni reads like a haunting incantation. Her narration of the entire book is flawless and stunning, like the text itself. The novel... Read more