Letters to Misty

I’ll admit: I side-eyed the concept at first. *Letters to Misty* could’ve easily become a saccharine pep-talk collection, but Copeland’s narration saves it from Hallmark territory. Her voice—husky, deliberate, with a hint of New York bluntness—makes her replies feel like they’re being spoken *to you*, not at you. When she describes her own teenage struggles with feeling ‘too muscular’ for ballet, her tone dips into a quieter register, and you can *hear* the memory weighing on her. The young narrators (standout: Tyla Collier’s expressive reading of a letter from a Black girl told she ‘doesn’t look like a ballerina’) add layers, though Pean’s occasional over-enunciation pulls you out of the moment. The production’s minimalist—no music, just clean transitions between letters—but the emotional range keeps it dynamic. My only gripe? Some letters get rushed. A 12-year-old’s raw question about colorism in dance deserves more than a 90-second reply, even if Copeland’s advice is sharp. And while the audiobook’s brevity (4 hours) makes it accessible, I wished for deeper dives into her *process*—how she crafts a response, the letters she *couldn’t* answer. Still, it’s a rare audiobook that feels like eavesdropping on a mentorship session you’d kill to have had at 14. Not just for dancers; for any kid who’s ever been told they don’t ‘fit.’