GREEN

Alex Gino offers a warm, effervescent narration of their latest middle-grade audiobook. Nonbinary Green Gibson is a member of Jung Middle School's LGBTQIAP+ Rainbow Spectrum club. As the group excitedly prepares for the school's revamped production of THE WIZARD OF OZ, for which every actor can choose the gender of their character, Green contends with complicated feelings about their changing body and their crush on Ronnie, a fellow member of the stage crew. Gino's voicing of curious, generous Green as they navigate puberty and test the boundaries of their own and others' professed identities is profoundly compassionate and resolutely affirming. Though the audiobook occasionally has too much exposition, Gino's narration carries the day, creating a cozy, accepting world listeners won't want to leave. S.A.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2023]