ALICE BY HEART

Narrator Marisa Calin's crisp British accent engages listeners as she tells the story of Alice Spencer. Alice's distress amid the blitzkriegs of WWII and fear for her best friend, Alfred, are clear in Calin's voice. Alice comforts herself with memories of the times she and Alfred would escape into their beloved ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. In her strange bombed city, Alice Spencer's confusion becomes very like that of the literary Alice. Though Calin's precise enunciation highlights the beautiful writing and the literary references may please Lewis Carroll fans, Alice's ponderous reflections and the slow pacing of the story and narrator may stop young adult listeners. Steve Sater's author's note tells of his youth when "books were my everything" and recounts his creation of the musical on which this audiobook is based. S.W. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2020]