Since March 2020, the National Literacy Trust (NLT) has explored the various benefits of audiobooks for children and young people, from building comprehension skills to sharing stories across generations. Time and again, two key themes have arisen: the power of audio to engage reluctant readers, and the role of audiobooks in promoting and furthering diversity in publishing. During the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, the NLT found that audiobooks were a lifeline for many children and young people, particularly those for whom access to print books was limited. As the pandemic and school closures continued, it became clear that NLT needed to focus on these key themes in the 2021 Annual Literacy Survey. This report builds on the findings from a previous report, which showed that audiobooks could help build reading enjoyment and provide a complement to physical books in the classroom (Best, 2020). The survey responses show that when school libraries, public libraries and shops were closed because of the pandemic, children and young people's listening reflected this trend, with 1 in 5 (20.4%) children and young people saying that they listened to an audiobook for the first time or listened to more audiobooks during this time. [For the previous report, "Audiobooks and Literacy: A Rapid Review of the Literature," see ED607775. This research was supported by Audible.]