THE RUNNING DREAM

Imagine the emotions of a 16-year-old star runner, who loses her leg when her team’s van is struck by a car. Narrator Laura Flanagan captures every feeling in Jessica's emotional story: her trepidation when she gets her prosthesis, her dismay when she realizes she’s not really part of the running team that wants to buy her a special running prosthesis, her horror when she realizes her parents’ dismal finances. In addition, Flanagan credibly portrays the characters who make up Jessica’s new life: her rigid teacher and her new friends—a girl with cerebral palsy and a boy she’d love to date. All of them escape stereotyping in Flanagan’s insightful reading. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2011]