The Whispers
by Greg Howard; read by Kivlighan de Montebello and Robin Miles
Intermediate, Middle School    Listening Library    Rev. 1/19
5 CDs    5.77 hrs.    978-1-9848-3840-7    $45.00

With his mom missing, Riley depends on the Whispers — fairylike beings with the ability to grant wishes, taken from a bedtime story his mother told him — to help find her again, but the truth of her disappearance is a lot harder to bear than the anxious eleven-year-old’s imaginings. Miles (as the mother) reads the bedtime story as the audiobook opens, her mature, measured tones bringing a gravity and otherworldliness to the telling. Then de Montebello takes over the narrative. A teen himself, he perfectly captures young Riley’s voice, yet his pacing, fluency, and polished emotional range display the professionalism of a more experienced narrator. The author capably reads his own appended note about childhood traumatic grief.

From the November/December 2019 Horn Book Magazine.