The Line Tender
by Kate Allen; read by Jenna Lamia
Intermediate, Middle School    Listening Library    Rev. 3/19
6 CDs    7.37 hrs.    978-1-9848-4546-7    $50.00

Lucy’s mother, a renowned shark expert, died when Lucy was seven. Now another death shakes Lucy’s world, and she must make sense of this new grief as well. Narrator Lamia’s voice is well matched to the unassuming protagonist, and her reading invests the dialogue with enough emotion to be sensitive without sounding melodramatic. Readily managing regional dialects from Massachusetts and Maine, Lamia also believably employs variations meant to indicate elderly or male speakers. The narrator’s easygoing demeanor helps make sense of a picaresque plot that may initially appear digressive but rounds out by the end to a satisfying whole.

From the November/December 2019 Horn Book Magazine.