WATER WINGS

While she's up on the roof retrieving her mother's bra from the chimney, Pearl hopes she won't fall on her pet guinea pig and best friend, Winston. The intrepid Pearl decides that if she had a grandma, she wouldn't be in this situation. However, her warm, fuzzy ideal of a grandma gets a jolt when the real thing comes along. Young listeners will love this wacky, tender, wittily plotted story with serious underpinnings by the award-winning Morris Gleitzman. Mary-Anne Fahey narrates with the cheeky audacity of a young girl on a mission. When Winston develops kidney problems, Fahey is believable as the desperate little girl aching with worries. Her bright, energetic performance makes Pearl as real as any child whose adults don't understand, or appear to be indifferent to, her problems. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 05]