ATTACK OF THE BLACK RECTANGLES

Pete Cross heads a team of skilled narrators in this exploration of how censorship impacts the lives of young people. Mac Delaney is disturbed when his friend Marci shows him the blacked-out sections of their new reading assignment, THE DEVIL'S ARITHMETIC, a real-life book about WWII and anti-Semitism in Poland by Jane Yolen. When the kids' concerns are dismissed, they will have to fight to make their voices heard. Cross takes center stage as Mac, imbuing his voice with Mac's longing for intellectual truth. Cross pitches the sixth grader's deeply felt emotions perfectly. Jane Yolen narrates a brief, effective chapter as herself, while the full cast of additional narrators take on the voices of townspeople arguing via letters to the editor about petty local ordinances. N.M. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2022]