AudioFile magazine and OverDrive Education are teaming up for the 12th season of the SYNC Summer Reading Program, which connects teen listeners with a selection of free audiobooks via the Sora K–12 reading app all summer long. Each week between April 29 and August 4, SYNC will make two thematically paired audiobooks available via Sora to listeners who have registered for the summer program. The selected titles will be available to borrow for one week only (during their designated theme week), but will then remain accessible to registered users indefinitely within Sora. This year’s themes include Confronting Injustice, After Crossing the Border, The Chill of the Thriller, and Off to Paris.
According to AudioFile founder/editor Robin Whitten, “This year’s slate of 28 titles brims with diversity—from the many publishers who have chosen to participate; to performance styles that range from author-read to paired performances to full cast productions; to genres including autobiography, verse, drama, fantasy, thriller, romance. There’s truly something for everyone.” She pointed to a trio of titles that she considers “especially exciting” recordings: Come On In, edited by Adi Alsaid, a collection of 15 #OwnVoices stories performed by more than six narrators whom Whitten characterized as “perfectly suited to the stories they deliver”; Monkey by Wu Ch'êng-ên, translated by Arthur Waley, a Chinese classic featuring an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning performance by Kenneth Williams; and Saints and Misfits by debut Canadian author S.K. Ali, read by Ariana Delawari, about a Hijabi teen dealing with family, school, and relationship issues.
This season, for the first time, all 28 titles will be available worldwide. “No matter where listeners are this summer, they will be able to move these audiobooks onto their Sora shelf for future listening,” Whitten said.
Participants made more than 136,000 total downloads during the 2020 SYNC season and in a post-program survey with 2697 respondents, 65% of users said that SYNC led to other listening or reading.
Hanging on Every Word
Earlier this year, AudioFile launched a podcast called Audiobook Break, which presents an audiobook chapter-by-chapter. The podcast airs three episodes/three chapters (one chapter per episode) per week and made its debut with a fitting title choice: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. (Dickens, of course, had great success with serialized fiction, including The Pickwick Papers—which became his first book.) NaxosAudioBooks has provided its recording of the book, narrated by British actor Nicholas Boulton for the podcast.
“I have always loved the idea of serialized stories and was initially introduced to audiobooks via broadcast programs like [public radio’s] The Radio Reader and Chapter a Day, and [BBC Radio’s] Book at Bedtime in the U.K.,” said Whitten about what inspired this new project. “The podcast format seems about perfect for the chapter-by-chapter idea. We thought that using an existing—published—audiobook would get the full benefit of top-notch performance and sound/production quality. Also, I have always wondered how do podcast listeners become audiobook listeners, what’s the key to cross over?”
Beyond her own fondness for the format, Whitten noted that the pandemic also played a role in planning the launch of AudioBook Break. “I spoke to podcast producer Phoebe Judge [Criminal, Phoebe Reads a Mystery] and she told me that last April she had just started reading a chapter each day of a mystery—as a way to give something to listeners in our locked-down world,” Whitten recalled. “She said it has been so successful that she can’t stop.”
Whitten is working with AudioFile’s Emily Connelly and Jo Reed (host of the magazine’s podcast Behind the Mic) on this new project and notes that the team will continue to focus on public domain titles—due to rights issues—including classics and mysteries. Since David Copperfield’s 64-chapter run takes them into July, there’s still time to finalize the next selection.
Though they don’t plan to bring YA or children’s titles into the mix, Whitten said, “We definitely are in touch with teachers and librarians to encourage ways they might use the podcast.” As an example, Whitten learned from Naxos AudioBooks’ sales and marketing manager William Anderson that the Wilson school district in Tennessee is starting “a ‘Walk with Wilson’ project, which has kids outside walking for 30 minutes listening to the latest David Copperfield chapter.” And going forward, Whitten offered, “We are going to have a live webinar in April of multiple ‘David Copperfields’ — four audiobook narrators who have recorded a version of the Dickens title—who will each be talking about their favorite character.”
