AUDIOBOOKS: Venturing Abroad (week 2 of YA Sync)

The theme for the second week is Venturing Abroad, promising to take the reader to places you might find beyond imagination. I like that this week had a fiction and a nonfiction book.

The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea

Wow, this one felt like it was written last year, not in 2004, but it does feel like it was a Pulitzer finalist for nonfiction writing. Starting with an incident where 14 immigrants died from heat exhaustion (and 12 others severely injured), Urrea looks into many aspects of Mexicans travelling and entering the United States illegally. From the people themselves, the border agents, and the guides, there are so many stories and issues beyond 'build a wall'. Listening to this makes one wish that a certain someone would also listen to it and see the shades of grey in the immigration issue. 

Solo by Kwame Alexander

I loved the lyrical writing of this novel in verse. It appears I like and can appreciate novels in verse because this is now the third book that I've read and really enjoyed. Solo is about the son of a famous rock musician. Blade is estranged from his drug-addicted father and trying to forge is own identity. He ends up on a quest to Ghana to find his mother. The audiobook is wonderful, read by the author and including music by Randy Preston, appropriately.