Cousins in the Castle

by Barbara Brooks Wallace Narrated by Steven Crossley

Overview

Eleven-year-old Amelia Fairwick is eagerly waiting for her widowed father to return from his business trip. But a letter arrives with shattering news - Papa has been lost in a terrible hotel fire. Now Amelia must leave her London home to live in America with a relative she has never met. Amelia thinks things can't get much worse when stern Cousin Charlotte travels with her on the voyage across the Atlantic. Amelia must stay alone in the cabin, talking to no one. But the day the ship arrives in New York City is worst of all. As Amelia waits on the pier for her trunk, Cousin Charlotte disappears! Edgar Award-winning author Barbara Brooks Wallace creates thrilling mysteries filled with authentic historical details. In Cousins in the Castle, she tells the suspenseful tale of a youngster plucked from a pampered existence and plunged into a dangerous world where villains plot beneath flickering gaslights. Steven Crossley's dramatic performance transports you from genteel Victorian London to the seamy slums of New York City.

Editorial Reviews

School Library Journal

Gr 4-6-Amelia Fairwick, 11, is a motherless child of comfortable means living in Victorian London. When her father purportedly dies on a business trip, she must go to America to live with her closest relatives, distant cousins in New York. The journey is Amelia's first introduction to Cousin Charlotte, a cold, strict chaperone who has come to collect her. The shipboard passage is brightened, however, by Amelia's acquaintance with sprightly Primrose, an orphaned singer in the employ of two grasping rogues slated to perform their musical comedy routine in New York. When the ship arrives, Amelia is abandoned on the pier by Charlotte and winds up in the care of Mrs. Dobbins, a kindly woman who offers her shelter in her tiny basement flat. But the next morning, Mrs. Dobbins is gone, and Amelia discovers that she is a prisoner. Suspicions mount that her cousins are after her fortune as Amelia escapes, searches out her pal Primrose (who is revealed to be a boy named Rosie), and eventually arrives at the forbidding mansion of her dastardly relations. Loose ends are neatly tied up in a run of high-rolling Dickensian coincidences: her father reappears, alive and well, and Rosie discovers that Charlotte, who is not so bad after all, is actually his long-lost mother. This gothic mystery is slight, but it will keep young readers guessing.-Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT

Kirkus Reviews

An orphan is abandoned, robbed, and kidnapped in a Victorian melodrama from Wallace (The Twin in the Tavern, 1993, etc.), a specialist in the genre.

When motherless Amelia's father is reportedly killed while abroad, she is forced to leave London to sail to America with her forbidding Aunt Charlotte. Upon arriving in New York, Amelia is beset by troubles and seeks help from the only person she knows, Primrose, a child singer she met on the ship. This is good entertainment, with all of melodrama's blandishments: an innocent orphan facing a fate worse than death, dastardly villains, conniving relatives, family fortunes—it's all here. So are the weaknesses of the genre: absurd coincidences, too-ample exposition at the climax, terribly tidy conclusions. Those who know what to expect will find this a lightweight but exciting page-turner, a good read for a rainy afternoon, that ultimately satisfies.

JUN/JUL 01 - AudioFile

Steven Crossley’s low voice and British accent add drama to the story of 11-year-old Amelia. Kidnappers imprison her after a traumatic journey to America to live with her cousin after her parents’ deaths. Crossley’s voice quivers with the portrayal of her grief and her struggle to adjust to a new culture. A strange choice to narrate a book with mainly female characters, Crossley strains beyond his vocal range to depict high-pitched cousin Charlotte. His performance of Amelia’s whiny singing is distracting. The most redeeming part of this story is the friendship that develops between Amelia and a poor, street-smart boy. Crossley reads him in a lower-class British accent. A.G.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171055509
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	08/27/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

Videos