A Phoenix First Must Burn

Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope

By: Patrice Caldwell - editor

Narrated by: York Whitaker

Evoking Beyoncé’s Lemonade for a teen audience, these authors who are truly Octavia Butler’s heirs have woven worlds to create a stunning narrative that puts Black women and gender-nonconforming individuals at its center. A Phoenix First Must Burn will take you on a journey from folktales retold to futuristic societies and everything in between. Filled with stories of love and betrayal, strength and resistance, this collection contains an array of complex and true-to-life characters through which you cannot help but see yourself reflected. Witches and scientists, sisters and lovers, priestesses and rebels - the heroines of this anthology shine brightly. You will never forget them.

©2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Absolutely brilliant

This anthology is something that should’ve existed before now but I’m glad it does now as each author picked for it is brilliant, every character makes you feel as though you know them & each story has made me wish there were full series to get lost in. Definitely a project worth supporting and a book that is as fun as it is thought provoking, 5/5, especially if you loved A Thousand Beginnings and Endings pick it up!!

stories👍🏾, narrator😐

There are plenty of good stories I'd like to re-read, but honestly I had a hard time listening to this with Ms. Whitaker's lisp for every ch, j, and sh sound for every. single. story. I know she's a voice actor, but I have no idea if she just had a new retainer in or what. Nice voice, but just not the best choice for an audio book.

Amazing

This was an amazing collection of stories that kept me locked in on each one. I took away some sort of lesson from a few of them, whether it was intended or not, I don’t know. It was nice to read a book with black representation.

Amazing Stories!

I really liked this book. Levar Burton reads one of the stories in his current season and it made me come check it out. The narrator isn't at good as Levar (which wasn't necessarily my expectation) but she did a great job of telling each of the tales. Honestly, the stories are so well written that it'd be hard to mess up! Get into this book and enjoy the historical, fantastical and futuristic stories of these Black, Indigenous and Afro-Latin characters!

distracting narrator!!!

The stories were amazing, however I could not enjoy them do to the narrators lateral lisp! Her Sh, Ch, Ish, and some Tion sounds were maddening.