We’ve come a long way—this week making it 16 weeks and 32 free audiobooks—since April. Thanks to Scholastic and to Naxos AudioBooks, this 16th week brings characters, authors, and narrators you’ll want to keep in your listening life.
THE MEMORY OF LIGHT is a teen novel authored by a longtime SYNC favorite, Francisco X. Stork, and performed by a favorite SYNC narrator, Frankie Corzo. You’ve met both of them in previous seasons, although not together in one audiobook. Corzo becomes the full cast of characters in Stork’s current title so that listeners, too, can feel like they are meeting and getting to know the other teen patients the protagonist, Vicky Cruz, becomes acquainted with when she’s hospitalized after a suicide attempt. In spite of the grim opening of this story, Stork, as ever, shows us how hope survives and how others in our lives make our own lives more valuable.
Paired with this full-length novel is one whose main character many listeners will recognize from the play Fiddler on the Roof. Here is the original story by Sholem Aleichem (a pen name for the author, and a Hebrew phrase that means “Peace be upon you”) about TEVYE THE MILKMAN, performed by Neville Jason. Born in Ukraine more than 150 years ago, the author was already a writer in Russian and Hebrew when he immigrated to the United States and wrote under that pen name for Yiddish readers. His stories opened American awareness to shtetl life in Eastern Europe as well as to how universal many human characteristics, dilemmas, and dreams really are. Jason understands all the wit and emotional breadth of the characters he portrays in this narration so listeners can readily sink into the tale that is rich with irony and the self-effacing humor of its protagonist.
We’ve met a lot of people along the way this SYNC season. Our final pair adds more to the group and can inspire listeners to consider the stories they have to tell about those in your life as well.
Here we are in the ultimate week of this year’s annual program for teens. While this week’s pair is the final set of free audiobooks for this year, we will be contacting you next week to ask what you found that delighted or confused you among this year's slate, or inspired you to listen to more audiobooks. In about a month, we will share the results of our survey with you as well so you can see each others’ “best listening” recommendations. Thanks for joining us on the way through the summer!
