AudioFile magazine launched its audiobook club in 2024 with Rez Ball by Ojibwe writer Byron Graves, narrated by Métis actor Jesse Nobess (HarperAudio). In Graves’s debut YA novel (Heartdrum, 2023), which won an American Indian Youth Literature Award and YALSA’s Morris Award, an Ojibwe teen grieving his older brother’s death is determined to realize their shared dream of bringing the Red Lake Reservation high school basketball team to its first state championship.
The magazine had run a summertime free audiobook download program for teen listeners, and “after 14 years, we wanted to change it up,” says AudioFile editor and founder Robin Whitten. “But the libraries and groups that had participated were sad about that. We thought choosing a teen title to kick off the new club was a great place to start.”
The club’s aims are twofold: to highlight the audiobook experience and foster community engagement. To that end, AudioFile will build a toolbox of materials tailored to each club selection—author and narrator videos and audiobook excerpts, discussion questions, listen-alike recommendations, and swag. For Rez Ball, the team sought out partnerships with libraries and literacy programs serving Native Americans. “It’s not enough to just make the recommendations,” Whitten explains. “We want to be sure that people are going to participate, and we want to hear about when they do it.”
Graves connected AudioFile with Kinsale Drake, who in 2023 founded literary nonprofit NDN Girls Book Club. “I’ve been an educator, teaching workshops for Native youth, I’m a poet, and I have my own community of authors and writers,” says Drake, who is Navajo and whose debut, The Sky Was Once a Dark Blanket (Univ. of Georgia), was a 2023 National Poetry Series Award winner. Among other initiatives, NDN Girls Book Club distributes literary care packages containing books by Indigenous authors to tribal libraries, student groups, mental health centers, and programs that center Indigenous youth. In 2024, the organization orchestrated its largest in-person book drop event to date, donating more than 10,000 books to tribal libraries across the Navajo and Hopi Nations.
“Byron had this idea of combining our care package effort with the AudioFile book club pick,” Drake says. NDN Girls Book Club selected three recipients: Keres Children’s Learning Center in Cochiti Pueblo, N.Mex.; the Native Connections Seneca Clubhouse Allegany, part of the Seneca Nation Health System in Salamanca, N.Y.; and the Hopi Public Library in Kykotsmovi, Ariz. “We’d previously worked with these libraries and librarians, and in the case of the Hopi library, we’d been there in person,” Drake recalls. “While we were there, we got to talk to the librarians and to a large group of youths who were excited when we brought the books and other resources, so we thought it would be a good fit.”
Each organization received paperback copies of Rez Ball and codes for the downloadable audiobook, a hardcover edition signed by Graves, and a selection of additional Heartdrum titles—all donated by HarperCollins—plus swag from AudioFile and NDN Girls Book Club including signed bookplates and basketball-related school supplies. Packages went out in late November, and the libraries are beginning to make use of their new resources. In Salamanca, a screening of the 2024 movie Rez Ball (adapted from a different book, Michael Powell’s Canyon Dreams) served to promote the care package giveaways. “People were so excited; we had a great turnout,” says Carrie Brown, a prevention specialist at Seneca Clubhouse Allegany. Using care package materials left over after the event, Brown is teaming up with a local English teacher for an event in May, where kids will read or listen to the book and join in talking circles afterward.
“Sports is kind of the center of our community and our school district,” she says. “Having the audio is appealing for kids, too. They can listen to the book while they do crafting activities at the clubhouse like beading or sewing. Having a relatable topic with the cultural component is so important.”
