I AM POSTING ABOUT MY FIRST AUDIO BOOK FOR KIDS TODAY.

Because I am behind on my 2023 Audiobook Challenge, I chose an audiobook to begin reading/listening to Friday night for today’s book review for kids’ books. Here at Powerful Women Readers, we reserve Saturday Mornings For Kids, much like 50s and 60s TV programming did. Mom and Dad would sleep in, and the kids would make their breakfast of cold cereal (Tony the Tiger’s Frosted Flakes, most likely), sit in front of the TV (with no mom around to warn, “Don’t sit too close!”) and watch Looney Tunes, Micky Mouse, and other cartoons. Those were the “good old days.” LOL

The audiobook I chose was one whose cover appealed to me…

Since I just began last night, and I had other books to read as well, I only listened to the first three tracks, but what I heard was interesting enough to make me want to finish.

The story begins with Boomica, better known as Boomi, trying out for a ballet academy. Twelve-year-old Boomi has noticed changes in her body. Unlike Bee Bee Jacobs, Boomi’s best friend, she still has her paunch of baby fat and seems to have more trouble dancing “on point,” which even causes her to lose her balance and fall during the tryouts. When the “accepted ones” are posted on the list, Bee Bee’s name is on it; Boomie’s isn’t.

The story is set in 2021 at the height of the pandemic; everyone is masked, and Boomi’s father, who was already in poor health, caught Covid the year before and died.

Track four begins with Boomi seeing a “friend,” a man of the streets who often talked to himself on bad days, showing up in the alley behind Boomi’s house, wearing her Dad’s overcoat. When Boomi questions him, he tells her that her father gave him a boxful of his old clothes, and that he gave him something for Boomi too. Strangely enough, it is an old, beat-up boombox. That’s as far as I’ve come, but my interest is peaked. Why would Boomi’s dad give the man directions to give it to her? Perhaps, will Boomi’s dad contact her via the boombox? Is the boombox just an ancient piece of trash? I intend to tune in to the audiobook tomorrow to find out more!