Walter Dean Myers has 20 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 28 narrators, with an average listener rating of 3.1★ across 29 ratings. The most-rated is Monster.
Monster
Summary
Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me: Monster. FADE IN: INTERIOR COURT. A guard sits at a desk behind STEVE. KATHY O'BRIEN, STEVE's lawyer, is all business as she talks to STEVE. O'BRIENLet me make sure you understand what's going on. Both you and this King character are on trial for felony murder. Felony murder is as serious as it gets....When you're in court, you sit there and pay attention. You let the jury know that you think the case is as serious as they do.... STEVEYou think we're going to win? O'BRIEN (seriously)It probably depends on what you mean by "win".
©1999 Walter Dean Myers (P)2000 Random House Inc., Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group
Fallen Angels
Summary
With starred reviews from School Library Journal, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews, this moving novel by acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers is a modern classic. In the late 1960s, Richie Perry is growing up fast on the battlefields of Vietnam. But in the war-torn jungle, every moment is a struggle to survive. All Richie wants is to make it out alive.
©1988 Walter Dean Myers (P)2004 Recorded Books. LLC
Sunrise Over Fallujah
Summary
Acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers presents a compelling novel that looks at America's occupation of Iraq through the eyes of those who live it first hand. Charged with building up relations between the U.S. military and the Iraqi people, a team of soldiers strives to make real connections and bridge the divide between two very different cultures. On constant guard from frequent suicide bomb attacks and deadly skirmishes, their situation reveals a tragic human toll.
©2008 Walter Dean Myers (P)2008 Recorded Books, LLC
Slam!
Summary
Greg “Slam” Harris can play basketball, period. On the court, he’s almost unstoppable. As he says, “I can hoop. Case closed.” But off the court, it’s a different story. Every day is a struggle to keep things together. Leaving his best friend Ice behind, Slam transfers to a top-notch academic school and is easily the best player on the basketball team. But his grades are slipping, and the coach doesn’t appreciate Slam’s attitude. On top of that, Slam suspects that Ice has started selling drugs, just as their opposing teams prepare for a showdown on the court. If Slam wants to hold everything together, he’ll have to apply his passion for basketball to everything else in his life. With an urban, teenage voice, Walter Dean Myers earnestly reflects the hopes and desires shared by many budding hoop dreamers. Narrator Thomas Penny vividly captures both the internal and external challenges Slam faces while chasing his dream from the streets, to the classrooms, to the hardwood floors.
©1996 Walter Dean Myers (P)2000 Recorded Books
Shooter
Summary
Cameron: "Deep inside, you know that whoever gets up in your face gets there because he knows you're nothing, and he knows that you know it too." Carla: "What I'm trying to do is to get by, not even get over, just get by." Leonard: "I have bought a gaw-juss weapon. It lies beneath my bed like a secret lover, quiet, powerful, waiting to work its magic." Statement of Fact: 17-year-old white male found dead in the aftermath of a shooting incident at Madison High School in Harrison County. Conclusion: Death by self-inflicted wound.
©2004 Walter Dean Myers (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Juba!
Summary
New York City's Five Points district in 1846 is a volatile mixture of poor blacks and immigrants from Europe. William Henry Lane is a teenager working odd jobs to make ends meet, but he really loves to dance. Watching the other dancers in Five Points and practicing when he can, he gets so good that he begins to call himself "Master Juba". Master Juba is just another entertainer, dancing in return for supper money, until he is brought to the attention of Charles Dickens, the great English novelist. Dickens writes about Juba and his dancing in his book American Notes, and it is as "Boz's Juba" (Boz was Dickens' nom de plume) that Juba performs in England with the Pell Serenaders. Juba quickly finds that in London, he's turning heads and taking the city by storm with his dancing skills and sense of rhythm. But what will Juba do when the Serenaders have to return to the United States? Slavery has been abolished in England; in the US it still exists in all its ugliness. Free black men and women are often captured in the North and sent down South as slaves. England offers freedoms that Juba could only dream of in the States, and returning home may prove a dangerous decision. This novel is based on a true story, the intricacies of Juba's meteoric rise as an explosive young black dancer brought to life by Walter Dean Myers through meticulous and intensive research.
©2015 Walter Dean Myers and the Estate of Walter Dean Myers (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers
Blues Journey
Summary
The opening line of this call-and-response style verse asks the question that forms the thread throughout: Blues, what do you mean to me? In a magnificent collaboration of words and song, a timeline of the blues is presented in a soulful reading with dramatic musical accompaniment that offers a compelling evocation of the blues experience.
©2003 Walter Dean Myers (P)2005 Live Oak Media
Guys Read: Pirate
Summary
Abdullah Syed Hari is fourteen years old. He loves his family and his friends. And he is a Somali pirate. A short story from Guys Read: Thriller, edited by Jon Scieszka.
©2011 Walter Dean Myers (P)2011 HarperCollinsPublishers
Malcolm X
Summary
As a 14-year-old, he was Malcolm Little, the president of his class and a top student. At 16, he was hustling tips at a Boston nightclub. In Harlem, he was known as Detroit Red, a slick street operator. At 19, he was back in Boston, leading a gang of burglars. At 20, he was in prison. It was in prison that Malcolm Little started the journey that would lead him to adopt the name Malcolm X, and there he developed his beliefs about what being Black means in America: beliefs that shook America then and still shake America today. Walter Dean Myers' classic biography sheds light on a Black man whose beliefs changed America.
©2019 Walter Dean Myers (P)2020 Recorded Books, Inc.
Thalia Kids' Book Club: Walter Dean Myers' Riot
Summary
The two-time National Book Award finalist discusses his historical novel about the New York City Draft Riots in 1863 with middle graders and teens, ages 12 and up. The event includes a discussion with the audience. Performance playlist: Reading with the Audience by Walter Dean Myers, then conversation between Walter Dean Myers and Madeline Cohen.
©2010 Symphony Space (P)2010 Symphony Space
All the Right Stuff
Summary
Paul DuPree is working at a soup kitchen in Harlem the summer his father dies, just trying to get by. But Elijah, the soup man, won't stop talking about the social contract and asking Paul questions about heavy-duty things. Paul has never thought about this stuff. He'd rather hang out with Keisha, an unwed teen mom whose basketball skills rival his own. Then Sly, a notorious Harlem big shot, shows up. Paul is both intrigued and intimidated by Sly and his conspiracy theories, and for once he starts contemplating how you really get ahead in life. As the talk of what-ifs turns into reality, Paul realizes his summer is about more than getting by - it's about taking charge of your life.
©2012 Walter Dean Myers (P)2012 Recorded Books, LLC
Invasion
Summary
Named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature,New York Times best-selling author Walter Dean Myers also counts two Newbery Honor Medals and numerous Coretta Scott King Awards among his many accolades. In Invasion, it's May 1944, and Josiah Wedgewood and Marcus Perry - two young men of different races and backgrounds - are headed to Normandy's front lines. There they'll share the joys of friendship, the terrible truths of war, and what it's like to fear that each day will be their last.
©2013 Walter Dean Myers (P)2013 Recorded Books
Pick-Up Game
Summary
It’s one single steamy July day at the West 4th Street Court in New York City, otherwise known as the Cage. Hotshot baller ESPN is wooing the scouts, Boo is struggling to guard the weird new guy named Waco, a Spike Lee wannabe has video rolling, and virgin Irene is sizing up six-foot-eight-and-a-half-inch-tall Chester. Nine of young-adult literature’s top writers reveal how it all goes down in this searing novel in short stories that each ingeniously pick up where the last one ends. Characters weave in and out of narratives, perspectives change, and emotions play out for a fluid and fast-paced ode to the game. Crackling with humor, grit, and streetball philosophy, and featuring poems by Charles R. Smith Jr., this anthology is a slam dunk. Who’s got next? One day. One court. Ten voices.
©2011 Marc Aronson and Charles R. Smith Jr (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.
Bad Boy
Summary
Into a memoir that is gripping, funny, heartbreaking, and unforgettable, Walter Dean Myers richly weaves the details of his Harlem childhood in the 1940s and 1950s: a loving home life with his adopted parents, Bible school, street games, and the vitality of his neighborhood. Although Walter spent much of his time either getting into trouble or on the basketball court, secretly he was a voracious reader and an aspiring writer. But as his prospects for a successful future diminished, the values he had been taught at home, in school, and in his community seemed worthless, and he turned to the streets and his books for comfort. Here in his own words is the story of one of the strongest voices in children's and young adult literature today.
©2001 Walter Dean Myers (P)2001 HarperCollins Publishers
Dope Sick
Summary
Best-selling author Walter Dean Myers has received two Newbery Honors and was the first ever recipient of the Michael L. Printz Award. At a young age, Lil J. Skin started stealing pain pills from his mom whenever he started to feel stressed - but now he's graduated to the big leagues. After Lil J. partners with a pusher named Rico on a sweet deal, events take a shocking turn when the buyer - an undercover police officer - is shot and Lil J. winds up wounded and hiding in a crack house.
©2009 Walter Dean Myers (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC
Scorpions
Summary
Lately everybody's messing with Jamal. His teachers, the kids at school, even his dad. And now that Jamal's brother Randy's in the slam, Crazy Mack has a crazy idea. He wants Jamal to take control of the Scorpions and run crack. All the gang jive - Jamal has no use for it. Unless, like some say, it's the only way to cop the bread for Randy's appeal. The story of 12-year-old Jamal, whose life changes drastically when he acquires a gun. Though he survives the experience, it's not without sacrificing his innocence and possibly his relationship with his best friend.
©1998 Walter Dean Myers (P)1999 Recorded Books LLC
Street Love
Summary
Your first love is totally wrong for you. Do you follow your heart? Or do you run away? Junice What am I doing? He'll take one quick look and wish he was anywhere else but here. I'm already ashamed of what I think he will think of me, of the life I lead... Damien Yes, she is the fruit that will sustain me and yes, she brings a rain that I know can chill. But it is a rain so sweet and sings a song my soul insists that I follow, if I would exist. As more than I have ever, ever been if my mother calls it evil, then I embrace the sin.
©2006 Walter Dean Myers (P)2020 Recorded Books
Lockdown
Summary
A five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award and a two-time Newbery Honor recipient, Walter Dean Myers has been called “one of the most important writers of children’s books of our age” (Kirkus Reviews). Lockdown is the powerful tale of 14-year-old Reese Anderson, who has spent 22 months in a tiny cell at a “progress center”. Living in fear and isolation, Reese begins looking within himself to find a way out of the prison system.
©2010 Walter Dean (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC
Harlem Summer
Summary
Myers is at his clever best in this witty and action-packed, coming-of-age story of a teenager's summer during the Harlem Renaissance and his run-ins with famous gangsters, writers, and musicians. It's 1925 and Mark Purvis is a 16-year-old with a summer to kill. He'd rather jam with his jazz band (they need the practice), but is urged by his parents to get a job. As an assistant at The Crisis, a magazine for the "new Negro", Mark rubs shoulders with Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. He's invited to a party at Alfred Knopf's place. He's making money, but not enough, and when piano player Fats Waller entices him and his buddies to make some fast cash, Mark finds himself crossing the gangster Dutch Schultz.
©2007 Walter Dean Myers (P)2013 Recorded Books
145th Street: Short Stories
Summary
From the award-winning author of Monster, this collection of powerful and poignant stories about 145th Street - an unforgettable block in the heart of Harlem - celebrates African-American life in all of its glory. “Myers is a master.” (The New York Times Book Review) On Harlem’s 145th Street, things happen that don’t happen anywhere else in the world. Get to know Big Joe, who’s throwing his own funeral while he’s here to enjoy it, and everyone’s invited. Meet Kitty and Mack, teens with a love story more real than anything they’ve ever known. Follow Monkeyman, the quietest kid on the block and the last person you’d expect the Tigros gang to target. And don’t miss the block party of the year - the whole neighborhood will be there. From danger and despair to hilarity and joy, literary legend Walter Dean Myers captures every mood and every beat of life in this vibrant Harlem. Stories and and touching tributes from authors, artists, and literary legends reflecting on Myer’s legacy are narrated by: Brandon Gill, Almarie Guerra, Johnny Heller, Dominic Hoffman, Sullivan Jones, JaQwan J. Kelly, Adenrele Ojo, Paula Parker, Heather Alicia Simms, Bahni Turpin
©2001 Walter Dean Myers (P)2020 Listening Library