From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The tale of Mary, an 18th-century London street urchin who dresses as a boy, renames herself Jacky and goes to sea as a ship's boy, soars to new heights in the audio format. Mary's distinctive Cockney dialect is tailor-made for reading aloud. And with award-winning narrator Kellgren at the helm, the result is pure magic. She creates authentic character voices, switching effortlessly among Mary's Cockney, the melodic Irish lilt of sailor Liam, the educated American voice of schoolmaster Tilden, the chillingly sinister, leering tone of Jacob Sloat and many other voices without missing a beat. Her acting is also first-rate: her tone of pride as Mary boasts of her achievements, her tenderness as she speaks of Jaimy, the boy she secretly falls in love with, and the sheer terror in her voice during scenes of violence and danger will have listeners on the edge of their seats. For tweens and teens caught up in this summer's Pirate Fever,
Bloody Jackis the perfect audiobook to make those long family car trips fly by. Ages 12-up.
(May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From AudioFile
Katherine Kellgren's coarse accents put us on eighteenth-century London streets, where Mary Faber's family has died of "pestilence," leaving the bawling child to scavenge on her own. Kellgren brings out Mary's feisty nature, showing us how she and her mate, Charley, negotiate begging and danger with self-confidence. By the time Mary's protector is killed, Kellgren has us convinced of Mary's gutsy nature, and we're not a bit surprised when, at 13, she takes to the high seas, hiding her female identity on a Navy ship, becoming "brave Jacky." Kellgren portrays the nonstop adventures of this animated character, who deals with everything from pirate attacks to worrying that she's dying when her period arrives. Kellgren's swift and passionate reading increases the story's tension and immediacy. S.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
