Monday, November 23, 2015

NONFICTION NOVEMBER: Young Adult Non-fiction Echoes of Courage

Two short audiobooks from the summer, courtesy of YA Sync. YA Sync is the most awesome program around - two free audiobooks each week, pairing a classic and a newer young adult book. Just get on their mailing list and you'll get a reminder to download the books each week. That's the only hard part - the books are only available a week at a time. Don't forget - it will hopefully start up again in May 2016.


Courage Has No Color : The True Story of the Triple Nickles: America's First Black Paratroopers - Tanya Lee Stone (3 h 3 min)

Good historic look at integration in the US Army during the second world war with the first black paratroopers. The hypocrisy of the Americans fighting tyranny in Europe and Asia when their own citizens were unable to fight with them is galling.

Courage Has No Color was paired with Under a War-Torn Sky by L. M. Elliott


Echoes of an Angel: The Miraculous True Story of a Boy Who Lost His Eyes but Could Still See- Aquanetta Gordon (7 h 23 min)
 
I remember seeing an episode of 20/20 featuring Ben Underwood, the blind boy who used echolocation to move around and was fascinated. This is the book written by his mother about Ben's life. Her book focuses on her (and Ben's) Christian faith as they deal with the health issues of Ben and the difficulties in their lives. I would have been more interested in the science of his clicking technique to 'see', but that is not the fault of the book. It is heavily Christian, and I mostly enjoyed it, but had more about the mother and her life than I was interested in. Again, not the book's fault - this is her story she wrote. Ben was very inspiring in all that he faced, and he was a very special human, and could make a person wonder about angels on earth.
Echoes of an Angel was paired with Budda Boy by Kathe Koja