Publishers Weekly - October 30, 2017

original documentary was released, and a guide to fighting climate change. The production comes across awkwardly, which is unsurprising considers it is a resource guide turned documentary turned audiobook. It strives for the conversational yet highly produced style of popular podcasts, but falls short. The book employs different voices for each segment—profiles, actions to take, knowledge to consider—and occasional musical segues, but each voice feels divorced from the previous section, which makes the listening experience disjointed. One part that’s especially off-putting is the interview between Gore and artist-activist Shepard Fairey, in which actor Marin Ireland performs Gore’s contributions, which is odd considering that Gore reads for the introduction and conclusion. The book has a lot of invigorating parts to inspire and motivate people, but the consideration that went into the documentary is absent from the audiobook. A Rodale paperback. (July)

I Was Told to Come Alone: My
Journey Beyond the Lines of Jihad

Souad Mekhennet, read by Kirsten Potter. Tantor Audio, unabridged, 10 CDs, 12 hrs., $44.99 ISBN 978-1-5414-0733-6

Actor Potter stands in for but doesn’t
adequately capture the voice of the author
in reading the audio edition of
Mekhennet’s memoir. As a journalist,
Mekhennet first shot to fame in the after-
math of the September 11th attacks, when
her talent, drive, and Muslim identity
granted her unprecedented access to ter-
rorist cells and war zones throughout the
world. Raised in Germany by immigrant
parents from Morocco and Turkey,
Mekhennet’s unusually cosmopolitan
background helped her to see multiple
sides of the stories she has covered for
Western outlets like the New York Times,
the Washington Post, and NPR. Potter
doesn’t quite have those cosmopolitan
chops, however. As a narrator she is compe-
tent, but she sounds thoroughly American
here, and is therefore not quite believable
as a globe-trotting German reporter. If the
listener can get past that miscasting,
though, other advantages of Potter’s narra-
tion, like her emotional sensitivity, become
evident. She also captures Mekhennet’s
unexpected moments of humor in an other-
wise serious book, like when she recovers
her confiscated Kindle after being interro-
gated in Egypt and discovers that her cap-
tors apparently read to the end of a self-
help book for single women. Still, the
difference between the author’s back-
ground and the narrator’s is apparent
throughout. A Holt hardcover. (June)

Children’s/YA

★ Refugee

Alan Gratz, read by Michael Goldstrom, Kyla Garcia, and Assaf Cohen. Scholastic Audio, unabridged, 7 CDs, 7. 5 hrs., $34.99 ISBN

978-1-338-19107-3

The trenchant audio edition of Gratz’s middle grade novel employs the voices of three actor to tell the interwoven stories of three young refugees. Actor Goldstrom convincingly portrays 12-year-old Josef, who escapes persecution and murder in Germany in 1938. Listeners can hear the loss of innocence in Josef’s voice as he goes from anticipating becoming a bar mitzvah to becoming the head of the family after his father is murdered. Voice artist Garcia skillfully narrates the plight of 11-year- old Isabel and the Fernandez family during their harrowing 90-mile escape from Cuba to Miami on a boat in 1994. Actor Cohen dramatizes the horror of the ongoing Syrian crises in reading the story 12-year- old Mahmoud and his family, who are fleeing from the current, devastating civil war in Syria. His portrayal of Mahmoud’s optimistic father gives some relief to the grim circumstances that befall the family on their way to sanctuary in Germany.

This well done performance is a timely work that will undoubtedly help young listeners think critically about the circumstances of children beyond their own comfortable borders. Ages 9–12. A Scholastic hardcover. (July)