THE BALLAD OF LUCY WHIPPLE

Arvilla Whipple is a pioneer adventurer to the bone, but her 12-year-old daughter, Lucy, is decidedly not. She is a Massachusetts girl transplanted to the 1849 Gold Rush town of Lucky Diggins, which has absolutely nothing lucky about it. Reader Christina Moore's harsh, plaintive voice suits perfectly Cushman's wry, outspoken narrator, and none of Lucy's irony and sharp tongue is lost. Moore is equally effective voicing the wide range of Gold Rush types whom Lucy meets in her struggle to return to the sanity of Massachusetts. Oddly, though, what starts out as rebellion turns into the discovery of a different kind of gold for Lucy, and it's made of far richer, more enduring stuff than mere metal. P.E.F. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: JAN 98]