If I love a book, sometimes I check out the audiobook as a way to experience the title in a different context. When the production is on point, an audio “reread” can be even more  powerful than the first read. A few YA audiobooks caught my attention recently that I’m eager to recommend.

Shut Up, This Is Serious is an unforgettable YA debut written by Carolina Ixta. While the print edition deservedly received numerous awards and nominations, the audiobook (Harper Audio, 10 hours and 18 minutes) should not be missed. Set in East Oakland, California, itfollows two Latine teens. Belén Dolores Itzel del Toro is desperate for normal high school stuff, like a boyfriend. Instead, she’s struggling to find her footing—she might not graduate—after her father abandons the family. Her supersmart best friend, Leti, is also struggling: She’s pregnant but can’t tell her racist, Catholic parents because her boyfriend is Black. Engaging narrator Frankie Corzo adroitly embodies each teen; with Belén you not only hear but also feel the heaviness of her depression and inability to imagine her future. This story about generational trauma, the hypersexualization of Black and Brown girls, friendship, and self-discovery is beautifully complicated, and the audiobook delivers the necessary emotional upheaval.

I’ve been a huge fan of Renée Watson since This Side of Home (2015), and I’m always excited to read her work. Black Girl You Are Atlas is narrated by Watson herself (Penguin Random House Audio, 51 minutes), and while semiautobiographical, it is simultaneously a letter to Black girls and women, a call to our sisterhood, and a celebration of our potential futures. Using various forms of poetry—including haiku, free verse, and tanka—Watson writes about her experience growing up as a young Black girl in Portland, Oregon. The pieces are at once deeply personal and universal, exploring the intersections of race, class, and gender. Although listeners will miss out on the book’s multimedia collage artwork by Ekua Holmes, hearing the author read her own lyrical poems is transformative. Each time she says, “Black girl you are atlas,” the intonation is subtly different and changes the meaning in a powerful way, eliciting shivers with each refrain. With Watson in your ear, directly encouraging you to “be your own hype crew,” how can you not respond to the call?

I truly believe that How the Boogeyman Became a Poet was written especially to be turned into an audiobook (Quill Tree Books/Harper Audio, 5 hours and 3 minutes).Poet, writer, and hip-hop educator Tony Keith Jr. narrates, and no one else could have done it justice. With rhythmic recitation, Keith chronicles his life as a closeted Black teen living in poverty and enduring racismwhile trying to live his life with a “straight script.” When he becomes the first person in his (supportive) family to attend college, he connects with others in gay chat rooms, fighting his loneliness with poetry. After transferring schools, Tony comes out and begins to live authetically as an openly gay person. Subtle sound effects, like the beat of African drums, add to the listening experience and help the poetry come alive.

Kirby McCurtis is director of location services at Multnomah County Library in Oregon.