PENNY FROM HEAVEN

Amber Sealey breathes life into Holm's semiautobiographical story of 1953 Brooklyn. It's the summer Penny Falucci turns 12. Although she lives with her plain, ordinary mother, grandparents, and poodle, Scarlett O'Hare, she spends a lot of time with her deceased father's large, loving Italian-American family as she tries to know the father she can't remember. As the voice of Penny, Sealey creates the feel of the fifties--from the hope in the Brooklyn Dodgers winning the pennant to the fear that polio lurks in every public pool to Penny's enthusiasm for the word "swell." Sealey captures Penny's determination to uncover the facts of her father's death and reunite the two sides of her family. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC 06/ JAN 07]