Overview

Winner of the 2025 Audie Award Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award IPPY Award - Outstanding Audiobook of the Year In a time of national division, a teenager faces a choice of conscience-to hold on to the life he's known or find the courage to stand up for the future he's come to believe in. Sit in the director's chair with this Scriptbook Edition, designed to be experienced alongside the full-cast audio drama. Follow every word as fifteen actors bring twenty-four characters to life in a powerful, immersive read-and-listen experience. ""Performed by a gifted cast, this slice of our history stays with the listener."" - AudioFile Magazine Wichita, summer 1968. The Civil Rights Movement is a time of turmoil and change. New fair-housing laws and the integration of schools promise equality, but not everyone is ready to accept this new reality. Your father is gone. Your brother is a soldier in Vietnam. Your mother is losing it. Then the Washingtons-a Black family with a daughter your age-cross the invisible redline and move in right next door. You're thirteen, walking into a newly integrated junior high with sports dreams, a temper you can't always control, and classmates unlike any you've ever known: Eric, your wannabe-hippie best friend; Andy, the brainy athlete from Alabama; Leon, who declares he's ""The Greatest,"" like his idol Muhammad Ali; and Ivy, the fearless girl you can't ignore. A man from your mother's past appears-an old flame who fuels her hate and fear. He makes himself at home in your house. He orders you to help build the fence between your yard and hers. Your mother warns, ""Stay away from them or you're grounded for life!"" As tensions mount at home, haunting music drifts through the fence separating your house from theirs. You decide to step across, entering a world of possibility and danger. Rooted in the author's own journey and the lived experiences of others, this unforgettable drama gives voice to a period of history not unlike our own. A story of who we were-and who we can be. It demands to be both read and heard. ADVISORY: Contains violent content and racist language. Best suited for mature YA readers and adults. Classroom educators, book-group leaders, and solo readers: unlock bonus materials and purchase the award-winning audio drama. QR code inside.

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9781732304734

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Reviews

PRAISE FOR THE AUDIO DRAMA ""Performed by a gifted cast, this slice of our history stays with the listener."" -AudioFile Magazine (Earphones Award) ""The YA Audie winner The Real Education of TJ Crowley: Coming of Age on the Redline will sweep you away to the turbulent times of the Civil Rights Movement as one boy learns valuable lessons. Replete with a full cast and exceptional sound design, plus gospel music from the ARISE Ensemble, it's easy to see why this one was the winner."" -Audible ""This immersive audio dramatization earned an Earphones Award from AudioFile Magazine before capturing the much-deserved Audie. A cast of 15 actors plus a music ensemble lend their immense talents to this fast-paced, suspenseful, important, and revelatory coming-of-age story."" -Barnes & Noble ""As seen through the eyes of seventh grader TJ Crowley, this page-turner offers an immersive, unflinching, and profoundly compassionate tale that plunges the listener deep into the social and racial strife of Wichita, Kansas, 1968. The excellent, fearless performances vividly bring the grim truths of America's racial legacy to life, but the light of kindness and hope is always shining."" -Maryrose Wood, award-winning author of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place and Alice's Farm: A Rabbit's Tale ""Once I started listening to this audio drama, I couldn't stop. This production handled a sensitive topic with such brilliance it reminded me of an old radio drama series. After finishing the program, I immediately chose it for one of our teen book club selections. Students found it engaging and suspenseful-a history lesson and a story that made them feel hopeful about the capacity for individual and social change."" -Leslie M. Martino, educator, adjunct professor, and author of The Joy of Slow: Restoring Balance and Wonder to Homeschool Learning ""Tapped every emotion of the human experience... well written and exceptionally directed... a bird's-eye view of race relations in 1960s America. This production deserves all the praise and accolades that have come its way!"" -Amber Dekkers, poet, actress, educator PRAISE FOR THE NOVEL ""A deftly crafted, thought-provoking, and solid work of YA historical fiction... not just about confronting external challenges, but about the personal transformation that occurs when we challenge inherited beliefs."" -Midwest Book Review ""Set in an explosive moment in America's racial history... this story prompted me to consider my own moral courage... I was on the edge of my seat, rooting for TJ as he gained clarity."" -Debby Irving, author of Waking Up White ""TJ Crowley offers a model of how a white person can learn, change, and challenge assumptions. An invaluable classroom resource."" -Jenna Chandler-Ward, co-founder, Teaching While White ""A nostalgic and haunting work of fiction. The story is a window into a time and place that seems so distant, and yet so familiar."" -Jay M. Price, Ph.D., department chair and director of local and community history, Wichita State University

Author Information

Grant Overstake is a Kansas-born author, journalist, and creative producer whose work explores personal growth, social justice, and the emotional resilience of teens coming of age in the American heartland. A former Miami Herald journalist and USATF All-American track and field athlete, he infuses his writing with grit, integrity, and personal experience.Raised in Wichita, Kansas, during the Civil Rights era, he came of age on the stark dividing line of that redlined, segregated city. His novel, The Real Education of TJ Crowley, draws deeply from that turbulent period and his own formative experiences: a father's absence, a mother's long-term illness, schoolyard fights, academic struggles, and the forging of friendships with classmates and teammates who looked different.Grant began his writing career at the age of eighteen as a part-time reporter for The Wichita Eagle. He later earned a scholarship to the University of Kansas School of Journalism, where a sports feature he wrote for The Daily Kansan won a William Randolph Hearst Award, often called the Pulitzer Prize of college journalism. After graduating, he joined The Miami Herald, a newsroom known for producing bestselling authors.Grant's novel, grounded in his personal history, is inspired by a several-decade-long question that lingered in his mind. When a Black family moved in next door, his own family chose white flight. Quickly shunning their new neighbors, they fled before even knowing their names. As an adult, that moment in time became a personal reckoning.Over the course of a decade, Grant revisited his memories of that period and began intensive research of the era before and after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. He drew insight from community stories, a new friendship with the Brown family, and his years singing with the ARISE Ensemble. Through fiction, he asked the haunting question: what if his family had stayed in their home? Drawing from his personal journey, he infused the story with themes of harmony, healing, and hope for a brighter future.Grant's debut novel, Maggie Vaults Over the Moon, is a beloved coming-of-age sports story celebrating Title IX, perseverance, and girl empowerment. Championed by Olympic athletes, it was named by CITIUS Mag as one of the best track and field novels of all time. USA Today columnist and bestselling author Christine Brennan called Maggie ""a warm, uplifting story for girls and the families who support them.""Beyond his writing, Grant is a dedicated teaching artist who has led creative workshops and school assemblies for thousands of students, from elementary classrooms to graduate seminars. A lifelong athlete, he continues to excel and compete in masters track and field alongside his wife, Claire. Together, they were honored with the global ""Couples Spirit Award"" at the 2020 Virtual Worldwide Masters Athletic Challenge Championships.Learn more at GrantOverstake.com May Wuthrich is a multi-award-winning audiobook producer, director, and performance coach whose career spans book publishing, film script development, and theater, giving her a multidimensional perspective on storytelling. Her expertise in book-to-script adaptation and guiding projects from page to performance has shaped hundreds of productions.From the Detroit suburbs, May began her creative life as a stage actor in New York City. After co-founding a small theater company, she discovered a passion for producing, leading to positions at CBS Theatrical Films, MGM-UA, Bantam Books, and HarperCollins. She later served as Vice President of Development for Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions, and for the writer, producer, and director Alan J. Pakula.For over 15 years, May has worked on non-fiction titles by Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and MacArthur Fellowship recipients: The 1619 Project, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine; Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy; Matthew Desmond's Evicted; Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming; Natasha Trethewey's Memorial Drive; and with author Philip Goodrich on the award-winning adaptation of Somersett: Benjamin Franklin and the Masterminding of American Independence. These works and others underscore her commitment to truth-telling and illuminating social justice issues through impactful storytelling.Her fiction titles include works by celebrated authors such as Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Gilbert, Adriana Trigiani, Jodi Picoult, Oscar Hijuelos, Richard Peck, and Kate DiCamillo, as well as countless other extraordinary storytellers.May also has been honored to work with many public figures, including Gloria Steinem, Senator Mazie Hirono, Robert Iger, Geoffrey Berman, Sunny Hostin, Mira Sorvino, Kate Mulgrew, Joe Morton, and Amber Tamblyn.She has taught screenwriting at NYU's School of Professional Studies and served as a guest lecturer at Columbia University's School of General Studies. She has also inspired students through The Great Books Summer Program, curating conversations with distinguished authors and filmmakers at Amherst, Stanford, and Oxford.Each chapter of her career has shaped the creative force she is today-someone dedicated to fostering creativity and collaboration, bringing transformative stories to the world.Learn more at MayWuthrich.com

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