THE BELOVED DEARLY

Doug Cooney reads his middle-grade romp with the familiar tone of an author who knows his characters. However, the myriad voices of the full cast distract from his humorous story, rather than revealing the spunk of neighborhood kids in a pet funeral business. Using a fuzzy-sounding vocal technique to create the children's inner thoughts does little to engage the listener in a story that would have worked better had Cooney simply read the entire book himself. D.P.M. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 03]