Are you a fan—and a promoter—of reading challenges, time record-keeping around personal media consumption (books, audiobooks, movies), and other such gamified approaches to experiencing creatives’ narratives? Let’s put that on pause this summer and reconnect with the details that recording speed (not the application of hyped-up alternative playback speed) already offers.

SYNC Audiobooks for Teens returns for a 12th season of free audiobook downloads to keep for individuals ages 13 and up! AudioFile Magazine has hosted this program all these years to encourage the development of new listeners during middle- and high-school summer vacation periods. Listening to audiobooks has been demonstrated to increase literacy capacity in highly skilled bookworms as well as those who don’t identify themselves as readers, to provide opportunities to deepen capacity for empathy, and to offer exposure to a wide variety of genres, voices, and expressive styles.