Orphaned at age 16, Hattie longs for a place where folks will welcome her and become her family. When an uncle leaves her a claim of 320 acres in Montana, she hastens to make a home of her own, unprepared for life on the prairie in the brutal winter of 1918. With considerable humor, Kirsten Potter employs a variety of old-fashioned Western accents to differentiate the cast of colorful characters. Potter excels at conveying the emotions that run high as Hattie faces the challenges of homestead life, including the bigotry of neighbors against the German-American friends who have helped her in every way. Meticulous research in archives and family materials gives this saga an authenticity that will captivate listeners.
Ages 10+Pub Date: April 10, 2007
Duration: 8 hrs, 30 mins
Publisher: Listening Library
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Themes of inheritance, identity, sacrifice, and belonging resonate through three voices.
This multigenerational family story comes to life through an ensemble performance. After high schooler Dawn receives an assignment to interview her grandmother, she begins uncovering a family history that stretches from 19th-century China to Taiwan and then New York. Eunice Wong, Katharine Chin, and Kenneth Lee shift among generations with careful attention to rhythm, pitch, and emotional texture, making the transitions easy to follow. Their performances capture the family's guardedness over its old secretsas well as Dawn's curiosity as a young woman seeking answers. As the layers of the Chin family history emerge, the narrators maintain a strong sense of continuity across time.
Themes of inheritance, identity, sacrifice, and belonging resonate through three voices. (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2026
Duration: 11 hrs, 42 mins
DD ISBN: 9780063238039
Publisher: Harper Audio
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2026
Jameson's vocal range turns a found-family pirate romance into a masterful performance.
Joe Jameson's ear for class distinction carries this swashbuckling romance from scene to scene. He gives Captain Sharpe a rolling, theatrical lilt that turns every "Kitten" into a small seduction, while Kit's clipped, overcorrected vowels betray the nobleman underneath his borrowed name. The pirate crew gets careful differentiation, too: distinct voices that stay clear even when several characters converse in the same scene. Kit Davenport flees an arranged marriage and hides his noble identity, landing as the bookkeeper on a ship under Sharpe's command—and only belatedly realizing that they're pirates. Jameson's performance does the real work of the romance, charting Kit's shift from stiff aristocrat to someone looser and freer through breath and pacing alone—letting listeners hear the transformation before the plot confirms it.
Jameson's vocal range turns a found-family pirate romance into a masterful performance. (Historical adventure. 14-18)Pub Date: June 16, 2026
Duration: 10 hrs, 48 mins
DD ISBN: 9781668178690
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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