Noah has recently moved on from The Daily Show, and I’d love to see him do some voice acting. Noah speaks and even sings in Xhosa and Zulu. He gives different people from his past different voices. His storytelling style is engaging and laugh-out-loud hilarious. I never watched The Daily Show, not with Jon Stewart or with Trevor Noah, but it is clear Noah’s success is well-deserved. This memoir is Trevor’s story, but it is also the story of the many obstacles constantly thrown in his and his mother’s path. I had no idea Trevor Noah had been through all that! It’s incredible that he became what he did, and he certainly owes a lot of that to his mother. Some parts are downright shocking and heartbreaking. Some parts are poignant reflections on race relations in post-Apartheid South Africa. I was hooked on Trevor Noah’s narration of the audiobook in minutes. This is one of my favorite audiobooks yet! A must for high school libraries.

Nevertheless, Noah’s devoted and uncompromising mother-as voiced by her son-steals the show. Noah’s virtuoso embodiment of all the characters from his childhood, and his ability to perform accents and dialects effortlessly in English, Xhosa, and Zulu, garnered the Audie Award for Best Male Narrator in 2018. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical. Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa.

Audie Award for Best Male Narrator (2018).

Thurber Prize for American Humor (2017).

NAACP Image Award for Debut Author and for Biography / Auto-biography (2017).Evergreen Teen Book Award Nominee (2019).

Born a crime full audiobook