Fleischman’s touching novel about an abandoned inner-city lot transformed into a community garden is composed of 13 interwoven stories. A Vietnamese immigrant schoolgirl describes how she sets out to grow lima beans in memory of her dead father. Barbara Rosenblat reads the narrative of an elderly Romanian woman who witnesses Kim planting the seeds and assumes a crime is being committed. One by one, strangers in the neighborhood overcome their prejudices and join in the gardening--the school custodian from Kentucky, the Guatemalan teenager taught by his uncle to plant vegetables from the old country, the muscle-bound African- American planting tomatoes to prove his love for his girlfriend, the British nurse helping her elderly patient find a new lease on life. Many of the performers are nonprofessionals, and don’t try to be otherwise. But the sincerity and integrity of this project bear this garden delicious fruit.
Family ListeningPub Date: Jan. 22, 2003
Duration: 1 hr, 45 mins
Publisher: Audio Bookshelf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
While narrator Liam Aiken evokes the wistful, dolorous tone of Snicket’s second mystery in his All the Wrong Questions series, he fails to deliver Snicket’s signature snark with appropriate vigor. In this episode, the main character, 12-year-old Lemony Snicket, continues the investigations that began in STAIN’D BY THE SEA with the case of the missing chemist, Cleo Knight. As Aiken delivers Snicket’s declarative sentences in a deadpan voice, his remote reading keeps listeners distant from the story. Furthermore, Aiken does not always play up the quirks of the town’s eccentric characters. When he does use individualized voicings, the story shakes off its languidness to some degree. Aiken’s melancholy narration echoes Snicket’s loneliness but doesn’t enliven the recording for young listeners. An attached PDF file includes the character Seth’s illustrations.
(Mystery. 8-14)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
Duration: 4 hrs
DD ISBN: 9781478924845
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
Jeff Harding voices the many impactful moments of 1919 in this engaging nonfiction audiobook. From women activists fighting for the right to vote to the Red Scare and civil rights riots, Sandler draws parallels to today's social issues. Harding matches 1919's cadence with a forward-moving pace. He uses different accents for quotations, though the women and people of color might have been better served with a diverse cast. The asides and timelines that appear in the text also are in the audio. Full of fascinating stories put into a modern context, this audiobook offers much to learn about an eventful year and ponders the big questions of our current time.
(Nonfiction. 11-16)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2020
Duration: 5 hrs, 30 mins
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2026
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