I just wanted to take a quick moment to remind you about SYNC is a free summer audiobook program for young adults but you can do this to. From April 26th to July 25th, SYNC gives away two complete audiobook downloads a week –pairs of high interest titles, based on weekly themes. Sign up for email or text alerts and be first to know when new titles are available to download at www.audiobooksync.com.
I have always wanted to give audio books another chance and what better way then through SYNC Audio Books. These are actually both books I have never read so I am excited to give them a try.
The audiobooks this week are:
by Jon Walter | Read by Dion Graham
Published by Scholastic Audio
A gorgeously written account of a freeborn black boy sold into slavery during the Civil War; think 12 Years a Slave for young adults. Well-mannered Samuel and his mischievous younger brother Joshua are free black boys living in an orphanage during the end of the Civil War. Samuel takes the blame for Joshua’s latest prank, and the consequence is worse than he could ever imagine. He’s taken from the orphanage to the South, given a new name–Friday–and sold into slavery. What follows is a heartbreaking but hopeful account of Samuel’s journey from freedom to captivity, and back again.
by Gigi Amateau | Read by J.D. Jackson
Published by Candlewick on Brilliance Publishing
Born a slave in 1776, Gabriel grows up capable and literate only to be taken from his mother and sent to the capital city as a blacksmith’s apprentice. There in the forge, a meeting point for many travelers and news bearers, his work awakens him to the sparks of resistance that are igniting into rebellion around the globe. When he is unable to both defend the love of his life and earn the money to buy her freedom, and with the news of Toussaint’s successful rebellion against Haiti’s slave masters ringing in his ears, Gabriel makes a decision: freedom for just his own family would not be enough. Using the forge to turn pitchforks into swords and his eloquence to turn dreams into rallying cries, Gabriel plots a rebellion involving thousands of slaves, free blacks, poor whites, and Native Americans. To those excluded from the promise of the Revolution, Gabriel intends to bring liberty. Interwoven with authentic original documents, this poignant, illuminating novel about a major figure in African-American history gives a personal face to a remarkable moment in our past that is little known but should be long remembered.