LEAVING ATLANTA

The action of this charming and touching first novel takes place twenty years ago in Atlanta during the spate of child murders that terrorized the city's African-American community. The short book, consisting of the overlapping stories of three fifth-grade classmates, is told respectively in the third, second, and first person. The audio presents them through three narrators. None will exactly take one's breath away by their skill, though the two women are adequate. Kevin Free, however, is nearly unlistenable. Y.R. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 03]