A DAY NO PIGS WOULD DIE

Peck's coming-of-age memoir of his Shaker boyhood on a Vermont farm was first published in 1972. It stands the test of time well. With humor and honesty, he tells the emotionally intense story of becoming a man, "doing what's got to be done." Lincoln Hoppe's narration is disappointing. His delivery, in the voice of 13-year-old Robert, is filled with the gravity and weight of important events, but there’s no modulation or variety in his voice or tempo. Every word carries the same weight regardless of whether he’s relating Rob's excitement at showing his pet sow at the fair or his grief at the harsh reality of nature's laws. The humor in the story is lost in the narrator's heaviness. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2010]