J. D. Jackson has narrated 57 audiobooks on Listento.it by 60 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 433 ratings. The most-rated is The Mindful Athlete.
Legends in Sports: Michael Jordan
Summary
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be the best basketball player who ever lived, then Legends in Sports: Michael Jordan is the audiobook for you. In this exciting biography, Matt Christopher, the number one children’s sportswriter in America, puts you on the basketball court with the legendary superstar. Take an inside look at the triumphs, struggles, and statistics of one of the most determined players in National Basketball Association history. By working hard and seizing opportunities, Michael Jordan became the unstoppable force that every team feared, and the most exciting player who ever lived.
©2008 Matt Christopher Royalties, Inc. (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC
Citizens Creek
Summary
The New York Times best-selling author of the Oprah Book Club Pick Cane River brings us the evocative story of a once-enslaved man who buys his freedom after serving as a translator during the American Indian Wars, and his granddaughter, who sustains his legacy of courage. Cow Tom, born into slavery in Alabama in 1810 and sold to a Creek Indian chief before his 10th birthday, possessed an extraordinary gift: the ability to master languages. As the new country developed westward, and Indians, settlers, and blacks came into constant contact, Cow Tom became a key translator for his Creek master and was hired out to US military generals. His talent earned him money - but would it also grant him freedom? And what would become of him and his family in the aftermath of the Civil War and the Indian Removal westward? Cow Tom's legacy lives on - especially in the courageous spirit of his granddaughter Rose. She rises to leadership of the family as they struggle against political and societal hostility intent on keeping blacks and Indians oppressed. But through it all, her grandfather's indelible mark of courage inspires her - in mind, in spirit, and in a family legacy that never dies. Written in two parts portraying the parallel lives of Cow Tom and Rose, Citizens Creek is a beautifully rendered novel that takes the listener deep into a little known chapter of American history. It is a breathtaking tale of identity, community, family - and above all, the power of an individual's will to make a difference.
©2014 Lalita Tademy (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Clotel
Summary
First published in 1853 amidst rumors that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with one of his slaves, Clotel is a fictional chronicle of one such child. After Jefferson's death, his mistress and her two daughters are auctioned. One daughter, Clotel, is purchased by a white man from Virginia who impregnates her. Despite the promise of marriage, Clotel is instead sold to another man and separated from her daughter. After escaping from the slave dealer, Clotel returnss to Virginia to reunite with her daughter - now a slave in her father's house.
Public Domain (P)2014 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Freedom in Congo Square
Summary
As slaves relentlessly toiled in an unjust system in 19th-century Louisiana, they all counted down the days until Sunday, when, at least for half a day, they were briefly able to congregate in Congo Square in New Orleans. There, they were free to set up an open market, sing, dance, and play music. They were free to forget their cares, their struggles, and their oppression. This poetic, nonfiction story about this little-known piece of African-American history chronicles the daily duties of such slaves - from chopping logs on Mondays, to baking bread on Wednesdays, to plucking hens on Saturday - and builds to the freedom of Sundays and the special experience of an afternoon spent in Congo Square, capturing humanity's capacity to find hope and joy even in the most difficult of circumstances and demonstrating how New Orleans' Congo Square was truly freedom's heart.
©2017 Carole Boston Weatherford (P)2017 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Three-Fifths
Summary
Pittsburgh, 1995. The son of a black father he’s never known and a white mother he sometimes wishes he didn’t, 22-year-old Bobby Saraceno is passing for white. Raised by his bigoted maternal grandfather, Bobby has hidden his truth from everyone, even his best friend and fellow comic-book geek, Aaron, who has just returned home from prison a hardened racist. Bobby’s disparate worlds collide when his and Aaron’s reunion is interrupted by a confrontation where Bobby witnesses Aaron assault a young black man with a brick. Fearing for his safety and his freedom, Bobby must keep his secret from Aaron and conceal his unwitting involvement in the hate crime from the police. But Bobby’s delicate house of cards crumbles when his father enters his life after more than 20 years.
©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC
Called to Forgive
Summary
Witness the power of forgiveness through the Charleston Church shooting. On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a young white man, attended the Wednesday evening Bible study at the predominantly black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. An hour later, Roof pulled a concealed weapon and killed nine African Americans as they prayed, including Myra Thompson, the wife of Reverend Anthony Thompson. Myra's murder devastated Anthony, yet he chose to privately and publicly forgive the shooter. Many in the church and community still struggle to understand Reverend Thompson's deliberate choice to forgive the racist murderer. But as Charlestonians witnessed this incredible act of forgiveness, something significant happened within the community. Instead of the expected racial riots in the aftermath of the shooting, black and white leaders and residents united, coming together peaceably and even showing acts of selfless love. This audiobook is the account of Reverend Thompson's wife's murder, the grief he experienced, and the radical choice to forgive the killer. But beyond that, Reverend Thompson casts a compelling vision of the power of forgiveness to transform our lives - personally, in our communities, and even in our nation. Be inspired by this remarkable story and discover how the difficult decision to forgive can become the key to radical change. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Anthony B. Thompson (P)2019 Baker Publishing Group
Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures: Volume 2
Summary
More unpublished works from the archives of Louis L’Amour: complete short stories, partial novels, treatments, and notes that will transport listeners from the Western frontier to India, China, and even the future. Exploring the creative process of an American original, the Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures series will uncover the hidden history behind the author’s best known novels...and his most mysterious and ambitious unfinished works. In this second volume, Beau L’Amour examines how his father made the transition from struggling pulp writer to successful novelist and uses his father’s notes, journal entries, and correspondence to continue the process of seeking out how and why many of these never-before-seen manuscripts were written as well as speculating about the ways they might have ended. These selections include the beginnings of a post-apocalyptic science fiction tale, a proposal for a nonfiction project based on the life of Renaissance-era traveler Ibn Batuta, and two chapters of a historical novel set in India about the origin of L'Amour's well-known Talon family. At the other end of the spectrum are classic adventures, such as "In the Measure of Time", a chance encounter set on the high seas, and a science fiction film treatment set in Mexico, as well as 17 chapters of a novel that reappears throughout Louis' journals and letters and speaks to his fascination with post-revolutionary 1950s China, leading him so far as to correspond with the Dalai Lama. This audiobook further maps the journey L’Amour embarked upon to become one of our greatest storytellers and the diverse realms to which his imagination traveled, making him a true American pioneer.
©2019 Louis L'Amour, Beau L'Amour (P)2020 Random House Audio
The Ancestors
Summary
L.A. Banks, Tananarive Due, and Brandon Massey are three of the hottest names in suspense fiction. In this collection of flesh-crawling tales, each author contributes one deliciously twisted selection. A writer unearths dangerous truths in backwoods Mississippi and a man's sanity - and life - are threatened by disturbing visions. Then, in the third and final tale, two children are forced to face off against terrifying ancestors.
©2007 M.G. Vassanji (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC
A Few Red Drops
Summary
On a hot day in July 1919, five black youths went swimming in Lake Michigan, unintentionally floating close to the white beach. An angry white man began throwing stones at the boys, striking and killing one. Racial conflict on the beach erupted into days of urban violence that shook the city of Chicago to its foundations. This mesmerizing narrative draws on contemporary accounts as it traces the roots of the explosion that had been building for decades in race relations, politics, business, and clashes of culture.
©2018 Claire Hartfield (P)2018 Dreamscape Media, LLC
The Fierce 44
Summary
Meet 44 of America's most impressive heroes in this collective biography of African American figures authored by the team at ESPN's TheUndefeated.com. From visionaries to entrepreneurs, athletes to activists, the Fierce 44 are beacons of brilliance, perseverance, and excellence. Bringing household names like Serena Williams and Harriet Tubman together with lesser-known but highly deserving figures such as Robert Abbott and Dr. Charles Drew, this collection is a celebration of all that African Americans have achieved, despite everything they have had to overcome.
©2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC
November Blues
Summary
Sequel to Coretta Scott King Award winner The Battle of Jericho, November Blues is a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. November Nelson lost her boyfriend Josh when a high school hazing incident went horribly wrong. She thinks life can't get worse - then she learns she is carrying Josh's child. She seeks comfort from Josh's cousin and best friend Jericho, who himself is trying to hide the pain of his friend's death by diving into his sports and music. Listeners will get to hear November's story as well as Jericho's as they come to terms with Josh's death.
©2007 Sharon M. Draper (P)2008 Recorded Books,LLC
Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures: Volume 1
Summary
The first of its kind, a unique volume of 21 unpublished gems from one of the 20th century’s most popular and prolific writers Using his father’s handwritten notes, journal entries, and correspondences, Beau L’Amour uncovers how and why many never-before-seen manuscripts were written - and speculates about the ways they might have ended. These selections celebrate L’Amour’s vision and virtuosity, including the first seven chapters of a powerful novel about the Trail of Tears, a chilling Western horror story, and a tale of the American Revolution featuring a character related to L’Amour’s well-known Sackett family. At the other end of the spectrum are classic adventures, such as The Golden Tapestry, set in 1960s Istanbul, as well as several uniquely different attempts at what would have been the most profoundly intimate of all of L’Amour’s novels, a saga of reincarnation that stretches from a time before time, to the period of Alexander the Great, and on to Warlord-Era China. This audiobook reveals the L’Amour you have never known, his personal struggles as a writer, and the contest between mortality and a literary legacy too big for one life to contain. "Lost treasures indeed...a behind-the scenes look at the unpublished work and unrealized aspirations of an iconic writer of Westerns." (Kirkus Reviews) "A valuable addition to [L’Amour’s] literary legacy." (Booklist) Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures is a project created to release some of the author’s more unconventional manuscripts from the family archives. In Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volumes 1, Beau L’Amour takes the listener on a guided tour through many of the finished and unfinished short stories, novels, and treatments that his father was never able to publish during his lifetime. L’Amour’s never-before-seen first novel, No Traveller Returns, faithfully completed for this program, is a voyage into danger and violence on the high seas. These exciting publications will be followed by Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volume 2. Additionally, many beloved classics will be rereleased with an exclusive Lost Treasures postscript featuring previously unpublished material, including outlines, plot notes, and alternate drafts. These postscripts tell the story behind the stories that millions of readers have come to know and cherish.
©2017 Louis L'Amour, Beau L'Amour (P)2019 Random House Audio
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
Gateway to Freedom
Summary
The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. They are little known to history: Sydney Howard Gay, an abolitionist newspaper editor; Louis Napoleon, a furniture polisher; Charles B. Ray, a black minister. At great risk they operated the Underground Railroad in New York, a city whose businesses, banks, and politics were deeply enmeshed in the slave economy. In secret coordination with black dockworkers who alerted them to the arrival of fugitives and with counterparts in Norfolk, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Albany, and Syracuse, underground-railroad operatives in New York helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Their defiance of the notorious Fugitive Slave Law inflamed the South. White and black, educated and illiterate, they were heroic figures in the ongoing struggle between slavery and freedom. Making brilliant use of fresh evidence - including the meticulous record of slave rescues secretly kept by Gay - Eric Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history.
©2015 Original material published by arrangement with W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History
Summary
New York Times best-selling author-illustrator Vashti Harrison shines a bold, joyous light on black men through history. An important book for listeners of all ages, this beautifully illustrated and engagingly written volume brings to life true stories of black men in history. Among these biographies, listeners will find aviators and artists, politicians and pop stars, athletes and activists. The exceptional men featured include artist Aaron Douglas, civil rights leader John Lewis, dancer Alvin Ailey, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, musician Prince, photographer Gordon Parks, tennis champion Arthur Ashe, and writer James Baldwin. The legends in this book span centuries and continents, but what they have in common is that each one has blazed a trail for generations to come. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Vashti Harrison (P)2019 Little, Brown Young Readers
Freedom Dreams
Summary
Kelley unearths freedom dreams in this exciting history of renegade intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora in the 20th century. Focusing on the visions of activists from C. L. R. James to Aime Cesaire and Malcolm X, Kelley writes of the hope that Communism offered, the mindscapes of Surrealism, the transformative potential of radical feminism, and of the 400-year-old dream of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow. From "the preeminent historian of black popular culture" (Cornel West), an inspiring work on the power of imagination to transform society.
©2018 Robin D. G. Kelley (P)2018 Random House Audio
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