SOURPUSS AND SWEETIE PIE

This little gem captures the mercurial mood swings of a young child who spends time with her long-suffering but tolerant grandparents, Nanna and Poppy. Narrator Michele Medlin flawlessly portrays the main character's Jekyll-and-Hyde shifts from Sourpuss to Sweetie Pie . . . and back again. Her child's point-of-view narration has a particularly genuine sounding tone; the story humorously allows readers to imagine the grandparents' reactions without actually depicting them. Medlin's dramatization of the "no-o-o-o-o!" sequence (a rising crescendo of childlike raging resistance) is so eerily spot-on that parents, overly familiar with their own version of this scene, may need to turn down the volume, while younger listeners may catch an edifying glimpse of their own reflections in the story. J.C.G. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2009]