TREASURES FROM THE ATTIC The Extraordinary Story of Anne Frank's Family

This history of Anne Frank’s extended family and the spread of her work is based on family documents and recollections and is told mostly in family stories. Sherry Foster’s reading of narrative sections is subdued, engaging, and sensitive. When people speak or write, she gives them a range of accented voices, some more convincing than others. The text sometimes overdoes both European quaintness and the coyness of children, and Foster, mirroring it, is too quaint and twinkly, qualities that are disturbing in this awful context. Her children’s voices are especially saccharine, if uncannily well done. But except for some wince-worthy mispronunciations of foreign words, this is a skilled performance, careful and imaginative, and essentially true to the text. W.M. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2011]