THE MOST PRECIOUS OF CARGOES

Narrator Adam Lazarre-White's avuncular voice belies the anguish of this simply written fable, set during the Holocaust. A baby thrown into the snow from a train on its way through Eastern Europe to a concentration camp is the "most precious cargo" that a simple woodcutter's wife rescues and raises as her own. She has always wanted a child and views the baby as "a gift from the train gods." Lazarre-White voices the nonverbal wonder of this woman, and it is through her that the listener experiences the precariousness--and preciousness--of life during wartime and the ordinariness of the evil surrounding the deportation of millions of Jews. This is a haunting tale, masterfully told, that will stay with listeners for a long time. D.G.P. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2021]