Audio of the Week: Heartbeat
RSSFrom SLJ September 2004
B. Allison Gray, John Jermain Memorial Library, Sag Harbor, NY -- School Library Journal, 09/13/2004
(unabr.). 1 cassette. 1:30 hrs. Recorded Books. 2004. ISBN 1-4025-8482-2. $10.75 (Rental: $8.50); read-along pack: $33.74.
Gr 4-7-Twelve-year-old Annie loves to run barefoot and free, with only her friend Max as company. Through free-verse form, Annie narrates the simultaneous stories of her beloved grandfather's increasing signs of Alzheimer's, her mother's surprising pregnancy, and the troubles facing Max in this story by Sharon Creech (HarperCollins, 2004). Max is an angry boy, abandoned by his father, and struggling to buy running shoes so he can join the track team as his ticket out of his hometown. While Annie occasionally doubts herself, she is a strong-willed, self-aware preteen who faces all of these changes with equanimity. The art class assignment to draw the same apple for 100 days teaches her that there are many ways to see the world and that change is inevitable. A rather charming parallel to O Henry's Gift of the Magi exists when Max and Annie both sacrifice something to buy the other the thing that they most want. There are many nature and art metaphors in the story as well as Creech's often employed repetition of key words. Although the short form poems make the narration a bit abrupt and choppy at times, Mandy Siegried does an excellent job of sounding like a 12-year-old. Creech has created another beautifully-worded portrait of a girl whom most youngsters will enjoy meeting.
