THE BURNING (YOUNG READERS EDITION) Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921

White journalist Tim Madigan's portrait of the decimation of Greenwood--a Black residential and business district in Tulsa, Oklahoma--in 1921 has been adapted skillfully for young people by award-winning Black author Hilary Beard. In addition to scaling the work so that it is accessible to middle graders and older youth, Beard's perspectives as a woman and as a Black person bring nuance to this history. However, narrator Bill Andrew Quinn, a professional Black voice, sounds ill-suited to this particular performance due to his deep pitch, especially when he delivers Beard's introduction, in which she identifies herself in the first person as a woman. The text as a whole is given a dry, workmanlike reading. The content of this work is welcome and the narration clear, but the overall experience may fail to engage the very listening audience the text itself can attract. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2021]