Revolution

by Deborah Wiles Narrated by Stacey Aswad, Francois Battiste, J. D. Jackson, Robin Miles

Overview

It's 1964, and Sunny's town is being invaded.* Or at least that's what the adults of Greenwood, Mississippi are saying. All Sunny knows is that people from up north are coming to help people register to vote.* They're calling it Freedom Summer.

Meanwhile, Sunny can't help but feel like her house is being invaded, too.* She has a new stepmother, a new brother, and a new sister crowding her life, giving her little room to breathe.* And things get even trickier when Sunny and her brother are caught sneaking into the local swimming pool -- where they bump into a mystery boy whose life is going to become tangled up in theirs.

As she did in her groundbreaking documentary novel COUNTDOWN award-winning author Deborah Wiles uses stories and images to tell the riveting story of a certain time and place -- and of kids who, in a world where everyone is choosing sides, must figure out how to stand up for themselves and fight for what's right.

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2016 - AudioFile

Employing an audio documentary approach, the second of Wiles’s Sixties Trilogy focuses on Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Narrator Stacey Aswad—sounding by turns youthfully petulant, excited, and fearful—captures the spirit of 12-year-old Sunny, who is struggling to come to terms with her newly blended family, yearning for her own mother, and learning to rise above the bigotry of well-loved family members and friends. Raymond, an African-American boy who is frustrated with waiting for life in the Jim Crow South to improve, is skillfully portrayed by Francois Battiste’s accurate inflection and pacing. Voices of additional characters, news clips, songs of the Civil Rights movement, and other background material adding to the period authenticity are read by Robin Miles and JD Jackson, among others. S.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2014 - AudioFile

This second book in Wiles’s Sixties Trilogy focuses on the Freedom Summer of 1964. A documentary fiction format that tells the story of three young people of Mississippi is interspersed with sound clips and re-enactments of real events. The cast performs ably, and the story is compelling, but the audiobook struggles with its format. A sixteen-minute prologue (a sound montage that takes the listener back to the sixties) leads to the story of Gillette, Sunny, and Raymond (kids—two white and one black), which is interwoven with more extended historical interludes between chapters. With such a busy structure, the story fails to flow. This is a book that works better in print, a medium that allows the reader to both control the pace and examine the documents of the era while experiencing the story. N.E.M. 2015 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

Praise for THE SIXTIES TRILOGY #1: COUNTDOWN:

* "Wiles skillfully keeps many balls in the air, giving readers a story that appeals across the decades as well as offering enticing paths into the history." -- BOOKLIST, starred review

* "The larger story . . . told here in an expert coupling of text and design, is how life endures, even triumphs, no matter how perilous the times." -- HORN BOOK, starred review

* "References to duct tape (then newly invented), McDonald's and other pop culture lend authenticity to this phenomenal story of the beginnings of radical change in America." -- KIRKUS, starred review

* "Wiles palpably recreates the fear kids felt when air-raid sirens and duck-and-cover drills were routine . . . this story is sure to strike a chord with those living through tough times today." -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171995461
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/08/2014
Series:	Sixties Trilogy Series , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	10 - 13 Years

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