Unabridged Podcast

Welcome to Unabridged, the podcast where teachers take on books! Every week, Sara, Jen and Ashley (shown left to right in the photo) talk books, share recommendations, and celebrate all things bookish. On our blog (see our posts below!) we share bookish faves, pub day shout-outs, show notes, and book reviews each week.

Want to get more involved? Check out our 2021 reading challenge, join our buddy reads on Instagram, or become an Unabridged Ambassador!

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Aiden Thomas's LOST IN THE NEVER WOODS - A Dark and Twisty Peter Pan Retelling

Jun 4
3 min

Aiden Thomas's LOST IN THE NEVER WOODS - A Dark and Twisty Peter Pan Retelling

by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@teachingtheapocalypse) In this retelling of Peter Pan, Aiden Thomas's Lost in the Never Woods (Amazon | Bookshop.org), we meet Wendy Darling as she turns 18. We quickly learn that she and her brothers disappeared five years earlier, and she was found in the woods six months later without her brothers. She has no memory of what happened during that time. In the present, she works as a volunteer at the local hospital and spends a lot of time with th

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8 Retellings of Greek Epic Poetry

May 3
4 min

8 Retellings of Greek Epic Poetry

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) One of the categories I've been loving for the Unabridged Podcast Reading Challenge is "Retelling of a Classic." Though I'm no expert on Greek epic poetry, I enjoy retellings of it SO. MUCH. Here are some I'd recommend: 1. Madeline Miller's The Song of Achilles - Here's my review from 2019: "I love this book SO. MUCH. Miller crafts a brilliant story rooted in mythology and in the gritty reality of love. Her interpretation of the story of Achil

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175: Enjoy Revisiting the Classics through Retellings

Apr 28
13 min

175: Enjoy Revisiting the Classics through Retellings

In this Unabridged podcast episode, we share some retellings of classics that we've enjoyed reading. We share our picks including Hena Khan’s More to the Story, Patricia Park’s Re Jane, Rachel Hawkins’s The Wife Upstairs. These recommendations are perfect for the retellings category on our Unabridged Reading Challenge for 2021! Bookish Check-in Ashley - Aiden Thomas’s Lost in the Never Woods (Amazon | Bookshop.org) Jen - Liz Moore’s Long Bright River (Amazon | Bookshop.org) S

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Samantha Silva's MR. DICKENS AND HIS CAROL - A Charming Christmas Novel

Oct 23, 2020
3 min

Samantha Silva's MR. DICKENS AND HIS CAROL - A Charming Christmas Novel

by Sara Voigt (@meaningfulmadness) Samantha Silva's Mr. Dickens and His Carol is a delightful imagining of how Charles Dickens's iconic Christmas classic, A Christmas Carol, came to be. The story follows Dickens in the weeks before Christmas as he struggles to write a Christmas-themed story to satisfy his publishers, who are dismayed at the dwindling sales of his latest book. As the pressure mounts to meet the Christmas deadline, a cast of recognizable, yet not quite totally

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131: 2020 Reading Challenge Check In

Jun 24, 2020
27 min

131: 2020 Reading Challenge Check In

On this Unabridged episode, we consider where we are with our reading goals for the year, including how we're doing on the reading challenges we each selected back in January. We talk about the The Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge with @annebogel, Book Riot's 2020 Read Harder Challenge with @bookriot, and the Beat the Backlist Reading Challenge from @novelknight along with The Unread Shelf Project 2020 with @theunreadshelf. Want to listen to our original episode where we

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129: Re-release of Angie Thomas's THE HATE U GIVE Book Club Discussion

Jun 10, 2020
46 min

129: Re-release of Angie Thomas's THE HATE U GIVE Book Club Discussion

In light of the unjust loss of Black lives in America and of the Black Lives Matter movement, we wanted to share an episode from 2018 where, for our book club, we discussed one of our favorite YA literature books for the classroom, Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give. In the episode, we discuss the novel and share pairings including Gabrielle Union's We're Going to Need More Wine, Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil's The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes Aft

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117: The Unread Shelf with Whitney Conard - Curate that Unread Shelf and Actually Get Them Read

Mar 18, 2020
2 min

117: The Unread Shelf with Whitney Conard - Curate that Unread Shelf and Actually Get Them Read

In this episode, we had the wonderful experience of interviewing Whitney Conard from The Unread Shelf. She joins us for our bookish check-in (we're big Camille Pagán fans!), shares the origin story of The Unread Shelf Project, and offers tips to help all of us pare down those burdensome stacks of unread books. We round out our discussion with our "Give Me One" segment, talking about our favorite teas. Bookish Check In Jen - Camille Pagán’s Forever Is the Worst Long Time (on a

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114: Read Alike Ideas and Lit Circles - I Think the Risk Is Worth the Reward

Feb 26, 2020
2 min

114: Read Alike Ideas and Lit Circles - I Think the Risk Is Worth the Reward

In this episode, we're discussing the benefits of using Read Alikes within book clubs and within the classroom. We touch on some of our favorite YA lit books, such as Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give, as well as classics like Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. We talk about strategies for making read alikes work and ways to manage the difficulties in order to reap the rewards of exploring a variety of books centering around one theme. Bookish Check In Jen - Jojo Moyes’s The Giver o

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113: Why Teach YA? - There's Nothing I Want More than for Kids to Love What We're Doing

Feb 19, 2020
2 min

113: Why Teach YA? - There's Nothing I Want More than for Kids to Love What We're Doing

In this episode, we focus on classroom teachers and talk directly about how and why we incorporated Young Adult literature into our classrooms. We talk about series we saw our students loving like Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, and Veronica Roth's Divergent, and we talk about seeing our students fall in love with books. From classics like S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders to A.S. King's Everybody Sees the Ants, we talk about using YA lit in our clas

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Welcome - Introduction and Overview

Jan 22, 2020
2 min

Welcome - Introduction and Overview

Just getting started with Unabridged Podcast? Welcome! We're Ashley, Jen, and Sara, and we are teachers and podcasters who are passionate about books. We have four kinds of posts here on our blog. On Mondays, we post about our Bookish Faves, on Tuesdays we do Pub Day Shout-outs, on Wednesdays our episodes drop, and on Fridays, we post book reviews. (Be on the lookout on Thursdays, too; we sometimes have an extra post then!) There are many ways to connect with us! In addition

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99: Debate - Classics or Not?: I Just Skipped the Scenery...and the Descriptions

Nov 14, 2019
1 min

99: Debate - Classics or Not?: I Just Skipped the Scenery...and the Descriptions

What do you think of the classics? And, for that matter, how do you define classics? We take on these issues and more in today's episode, discussing the merits of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Zora Neale Hurston, and more. Listen to the episode, and then join us on social media to let us know where YOU think about this debate. Works and Authors Mentioned Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Emma Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations Ralph Ellison’s Invisible

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96: Update on Our Recommendations to Each Other: A Love Story . . . and Also Not

Oct 24, 2019
1 min

96: Update on Our Recommendations to Each Other: A Love Story . . . and Also Not

Well, we have failed at reading all of our recommendations for each other, but we had a good time with some confessions, some reflection, and some reviews of how well we know each other. In general, I'd say that we did a pretty good job recommending books for each other . . . and a pretty bad job prioritizing our TBRs. Join us on social media to share your thoughts about these books, your recommendations for each of us, and your tips for TBR prioritization! Missed out on the

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87: Get to Know the Hosts - A Great Story of Friendship

Aug 21, 2019
1 min

87: Get to Know the Hosts - A Great Story of Friendship

There's a little bit about books and a whole lot about us in this Unabridged Short episode. Learn what books we loved to teach, what scares us, and what we do outside of reading. (This is more of a stretch for some of us than others!) Feel free to share other questions for us on social media! And let us know: what's the scariest thing YOU've ever done for fun? what are your hobbies (outside of books)? what's your favorite podcast or social media follow . . . that's not book r

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79: Our Recommendations to Each Other - I Just Love This Book

Jun 26, 2019
1 min

79: Our Recommendations to Each Other - I Just Love This Book

The Unabridged crew took time in our most recent short episode (#unabridgedshorts) to recommend books to each other, which was fun . . . and a little scary! (It's weirdly vulnerable.) Check out what we chose to recommend for each other, and let us know if you have other books you think we'd would appreciate (or, of course, if you think we got something really wrong!). Jen’s Recs For Ashley - Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s Fruit of the Drunken Tree Sujata Massey’s The Widows of Mal

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78: Laurie Halse Anderson Highlight - It Is Okay to Fight

Jun 19, 2019
1 min

78: Laurie Halse Anderson Highlight - It Is Okay to Fight

For our last Unabridged Highlight episode of season 2, we're discussing the influence of one of our favorite YA authors, Laurie Halse Anderson. After seeing her at the Virginia Festival of the Book and reading her new memoir in verse Shout, we were inspired to consider her place in YA literature. It's the 20th anniversary of her seminal work Speak, and the new edition features some excellent resources and an afterword by Jason Reynolds, another Unabridged favorite. We were al

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76: Bryan Stevenson's JUST MERCY - A Must Read for All Human Beings

Jun 5, 2019
2 min

76: Bryan Stevenson's JUST MERCY - A Must Read for All Human Beings

In this #unabridgedbookclub episode, we discuss Bryan Stevenson's nonfiction book Just Mercy. Stevenson discusses his work as an attorney with prisoners on death row and with individuals who were sentenced to life in prison when they were children. During our discussion, we strive to cover the plethora of issues raised by the book, including mass incarceration, the way we deal with mental disabilities and mental illness, the death penalty, and the role of poverty in the crim

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61: Ibi Zoboi's PRIDE and AMERICAN STREET - Cherishing Culture

Feb 20, 2019
1 min

61: Ibi Zoboi's PRIDE and AMERICAN STREET - Cherishing Culture

In this Unabridged Podcast episode, we discuss Ibi Zoboi's YA Lit books, Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Remix and American Street. Pride summary: In this modern day remix of Pride and Prejudice, Zuri Benitez seeks to find herself as she moves toward college. When the wealthy Darcy family moves into her neighborhood of Bushwick, Zuri finds herself arguing for the merits of her home and struggling against the change that is threatening her path and her family. American Street

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60: Love Is in the Air - Romantic Books to Read in February

Feb 14, 2019
1 min

60: Love Is in the Air - Romantic Books to Read in February

In this Unabridged Shorts podcast episode, we discuss our favorite love stories within novels. Some of our favorite authors who write romantic characters (or characters with amazing love stories) include Rainbow Rowell, Leigh Bardugo, and Dane Huckelbridge. We discussed the novels based on levels of steaminess. For more recommendations grouped by "steam" level, check out our social media! Our Favorite Love Stories Ashley - Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga g

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58: Isabel Quintero's GABI, A GIRL IN PIECES - You Have the Power; Discussion with College Students

Jan 31, 2019
1 min

58: Isabel Quintero's GABI, A GIRL IN PIECES - You Have the Power; Discussion with College Students

"People are who they are no matter how much you want them to be somebody else, Gabi. And we have two choices: love and accept them with all their faults." In this podcast episode, we have a great discussion with college freshmen at Bridgewater College about Isabel Quintero's Gabi: A Girl in Pieces. Gabi is a Latina senior in high school who is working through struggles with her family and friends such as pregnancy, drug addiction, homophobia, and gender expectations. Throu

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54: Confessing Our Literary Sins - Not Guilty Enough

Jan 2, 2019
1 min

54: Confessing Our Literary Sins - Not Guilty Enough

- Alternate Titles - A financial goal which I will not confess here OR I'm not ready to confess that much OR I don't wanna climb the mountain OR I hate the classics. . . . I don't hate the classics. They're just not for me. OR Walking on the wild side: adding another column to my spreadsheet OR I just read books near the water Mentioned in Episode Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen's Emma Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby Interest

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