Skip to main content

Five Faves: Audio Books for Older Elementary School Kids

Recently I have posted some of my favorite audio books for Younger Elementary School Kids and Elementary School Kids. But don’t you all worry—I also have some new favorite audio books for Older Elementary School Kids. These are the audio books that sometimes deal with a bit more complexity in the plot or characters. Or perhaps there are some themes that need an older kid to completely understand. But nonetheless, they are all great books that will leave readers thinking long after the audio goes quiet. Enjoy! 

Written by Adrianna Cuevas 
Narrated By Anthony Rey Perez 
Dreamscape Media, LLC, 2021. Duration: 05:43:41 

Cumba is a 12-year-old who lives in Cuba in 1961. Cumba’s parents decide it isn’t safe to continue to live in Cuba since Castro might start requiring kids or teenagers to join the military, so they send him to live in Miami. However, living away from all his family in a new country and trying to learn a new language leaves Cumba feeling homesick and lonely. 

Written by Donna Barba Higuera 
Narrated by Frankie Corzo 
Recorded Books, LLC, 2021. Duration: 08:38:24 

In this sci-fi adventure, Petra and her family board a space ship that is leaving Earth due to the impending doom of a comet about to hit our planet. Petra’s family and others are put into a sleep state where she won’t age or grow with the intent on waking up decades later to populate a new planet. Only, when Petra wakes hundreds of years later, she finds that The Collective has taken over the ship and now Petra is the only one who remembers Earth and what was supposed to happen. 

Written by Phil Stamper 
Narrated by Vikas Adam 
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2022. Duration: 05:29:48 

Jake is the only openly gay kid in his school. And Jake’s parents want to support him. When Jake’s dad decides to fly a pride flag on their flagpole at their house, it causes the town to start making rules as to what can or can’t happen—such as no Pride Parades. Only Jake doesn’t think a Pride Parade is a bad idea—since that type of parade is just about bringing people together. Now Jake must decide what he wants to do in his small town that seems to not want to accept him. 

Written by Varsha Bajaj 
Narrated By Reena Dutt 
Books on Tape | Listening Library, 2022. Duration: 04:13:07 

Minni lives in Mumbai—in the poorest part, where water is hard to come by and life is full of unfair circumstances. When Minni starts to look closer at why the rich parts of the city always have enough clean water (enough for swimming pools and water coming out of every faucet) and why her area of town only has water available at certain times (with less and less water available every day), Minni discovers that some people will do anything to steal from the poor to make the rich richer. 

Written by Anne Ursu 
Narrated By Elise Arsenault 
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2021. Duration: 09:47:41 

Marya grew up in a world where everyone thought that her brother Luka would one day become a sorcerer and would make her family money. When Luka doesn’t become a sorcerer’s apprentice and Marya may be the reason he lost his chance, she is sent to Dragomir Academy—a place where other girls who have made trouble (of one sort or another) have been sent. Only, Marya realizes that things aren’t always as they seem and she and her friends aren’t just wayward girls who ruin everything.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The New Girl

The New Girl By Cassandra Calin New York: Graphix, 2024. Comic. 261 pages. 12-year-old Lia and her family have just moved from Romania to Montreal, and she's doing her best to keep up with the changes. But, she's homesick. She misses the rest of her family, her friends, and her favorite Romanian treats. She doesn't speak French and her English is shaky, which makes it hard to make friends, even in her international immersion class. And she's dealing with super painful menstrual cramps every month. But before long, Lia starts to hit her stride. She befriends the other bilingual girls in her class, she gets a spot as the artist for her school's magazine, and even has a new crush -- Julien. Though she may be the new girl, Lia is starting to fit in. This slice of life graphic novel is an adorable choice for middle grade readers and young teens. Lia is a likable protagonist and readers will have little difficulty relating to her adjustment to school. The text speaks to a...

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages.  Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Five Favorite Aunt and Uncle Books

  Aunt and Uncle Day I discovered a new holiday. Apparently, July 26th is National Aunt and Uncle Day! In order to celebrate this day, I am sharing my five favorite middle grade books that have stellar aunts and uncles. Now, due to a lot of various circumstances, these books have a lot of hard things (death of a parent, parental neglect, and one case of good parents sending their child off to visit an uncle during summer vacation). So, be aware that these titles not only showcase some amazing aunts and uncles, but they also open the door to talk about hard topics.  Closer to Nowhere  By Ellen Hopkins  Putnam’s Sons, 2020.  This book is actually told from two different points of view—Hannah and Cal’s; however, the two protagonists are cousins. Cal comes to live with Hannah’s family and Hannah’s mom—Cal’s aunt—becomes Cal’s support and champion. Cal’s mom died and his dad is in prison. Cal is in a family foster care situation and doesn’t feel like he belongs. Hann...