Sync YA Audiobook Downloads

SYNC YA Literature into Your Earphones

2 Free Audiobook Downloads Each Week

June 14 - August 22, 2012

Teens and other readers of Young Adult Literature will have the opportunity to listen to bestselling titles and required reading classics this summer.   Each week  from June 14 - August 22, 2012, SYNC will offer two free audiobook downloads.

The audiobook pairings will include a popular YA title and a classic that connects with the YA title's theme and is likely to show up on a student's summer reading lists.  For example, Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone, the first book in a new series about a girl who opens a door to two otherworldly cities at war, will be paired with Charles Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities.

To find out when you can download titles to listen to on the run this summer, visit www.AudiobookSync.com or text syncya to 25827.  

This week's selections:

June14 – June 20, 2012
The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch, Read by Dan Bittner (Scholastic Audiobooks)

Description from Sync:
Description:
In an America devastated by war and plague, the only way to survive is to keep moving.

 In the aftermath of a war, America’s landscape has been ravaged and two-thirds of the population left dead from a vicious strain of influenza. Fifteen-year-old Stephen Quinn and his family were among the few that survived and became salvagers, roaming the country in search of material to trade. But when Stephen’s grandfather dies and his father falls into a coma after an accident, Stephen finds his way to Settler’s Landing, a community that seems too good to be true. Then Stephen meets strong, defiant, mischievous Jenny, who refuses to accept things as they are. And when they play a prank that goes horribly wrong, chaos erupts, and they find themselves in the midst of a battle that will change Settler’s Landing–and their lives–forever.

AudioFile Magazine Review:
“…Dan Bittner skillfully embodies the teen as tragedy strikes and Stephen must suddenly fend for himself…Each outburst, each emotional shutdown, each request for help is perfectly believable when presented in Bittner’s even but emotionally layered delivery…Bittner’s well-tempered narration suits both the action scenes and the moral conundrums that follow.”

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Frank Galati [Adapt.], Read by Shirley Knight, Jeffrey Donovan, and a Full Cast (L.A. Theatre Works)

Descriptions from Sync:

Description:
Drought and economic depression are driving thousands from Oklahoma. As their land becomes just another strip in the dust bowl, the Joads, a family of sharecroppers, decide they have no choice but to follow. They head west, towards California, where they hope to find work and a future for their family.

AudioFile Magazine Review:
“With a photographer’s eye for honest detail and a musician’s ear for the era’s language and dialogue, John Steinbeck’s Dustbowl epic of displacement, heartache, and hope became both a touchstone and lightning rod in American literature as soon as it was published in 1939. The novel continues to resonate and L.A. Theatre Works’s full-cast performance of Frank Galati’s Tony Award-winning stage adaptation hits all the high points. In this story of family and survival, Jeffrey Donovan provides a solid voice and foundation for the Prodigal Son figure, Tom Joad. Francis Guinan finds the wisdom and humor in the broken preacher, Jim Casey. And veteran Broadway star Shirley Knight shines as the matriarch, Ma Joad, bringing heart, soul, and tears to every line. A fine introduction to Steinbeck’s world.”