THE TRUTH ABOUT SPARROWS

Twelve-year-old Sadie does not want to leave her home in Depression-era Missouri for a hard-scrabble life in a tar-paper shack on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Missing her best friend makes Sadie unappreciative of what is really important until someone with even less shows Sadie how to see beyond what she's lost to what she still has. Emily Card's subtle and youthful interpretation of Sadie's anger and grief facilitates the listener's understanding of the difficulties faced by the hundreds of thousands of Sadies whose lives were overturned by economic and environmental misfortune during the Depression. S.G. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/ MAY 06]