Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording facts for kids

The Grammy Award for Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording is a special award given out by the Grammy Awards. It celebrates the best spoken word recordings, like audiobooks, stories, and narrations. This award has been given out since 1959.

Over the years, the award's name has changed a few times to better describe what it honors:

• In 1959, it was called Best Performance, Documentary or Spoken Word.
• For many years, it was known as Best Spoken Word Recording or Best Spoken Word Album.
• Since 2023, it has been known by its current name: Best Audio Book, Narration & Storytelling Recording. This change happened because poetry readings now have their own separate Grammy category.

The years listed for the awards show when the Grammy Awards ceremony took place. The recordings themselves were usually released in the year before the ceremony.

Award Winners

Many famous people have won this Grammy Award for their amazing spoken word recordings. Here are some of the notable winners:

Early Winners (1950s-1970s)

Stan Freberg was the first person to win this award in 1959.

Carl Sandburg won the award in 1960.

Leonard Bernstein won in 1962.

Charles Laughton won in 1963.

Edward R. Murrow won in 1967.

Martin Luther King Jr. won in 1971 for his speech Why I Oppose the War in Vietnam.

Richard Harris won in 1974.

Peter Cook & Dudley Moore won in 1975.

James Whitmore won in 1976.

Director Orson Welles won this award twice, in 1977 and 1979.

James Earl Jones won in 1977.

Sir John Gielgud won in 1980.

Winners from the 1980s and 1990s

William Warfield won in 1984.

Actor Sir Ben Kingsley won for The Words of Gandhi in 1985.

Garrison Keillor won in 1988.

Comedian Gilda Radner won in 1990.

Comedian George Burns won in 1991.

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns won in 1992.

Basketball star Magic Johnson won in 1993.

American poet Maya Angelou won three times.

Former First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton won in 1997.

Christopher Reeve won in 1999.

Winners from the 2000s and 2010s

LeVar Burton won in 2000.

Actor Sidney Poitier won in 2001 for his autobiography The Measure of a Man.

Quincy Jones won in 2002.

Former President of the United States Bill Clinton won in 2005.

Former President of the United States Barack Obama won twice, in 2006 and 2008.

Former President of the United States Jimmy Carter has won this award four times.

Michael J. Fox won in 2010.

Jon Stewart won in 2011.

Betty White won in 2012.

Comedian Stephen Colbert won in 2014.

Comedian Joan Rivers won in 2015.

Comedian Carol Burnett won in 2017.

Carrie Fisher won the award in 2018 after she passed away.

Former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama won in 2020 and 2024.

Recent Winners (2020s)

Don Cheadle won in 2022 for Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation from John Lewis.

Viola Davis won in 2023, which helped her achieve an EGOT (winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award).

In 2025, Jimmy Carter won for Last Sunday in Plains: A Centennial Celebration.

Multiple Wins and Nominations

Some people have won this award more than once or have been nominated many times.

Multiple Wins

Multiple Nominations

See also

• Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children