{"id":329,"date":"2009-01-13T23:42:56","date_gmt":"2009-01-14T03:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/13\/review-of-fairest-audiobook-by-gail-carson-levine\/"},"modified":"2009-01-24T23:51:44","modified_gmt":"2009-01-25T03:51:44","slug":"review-of-fairest-audiobook-by-gail-carson-levine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=329","title":{"rendered":"Review of Fairest Audiobook, by Gail Carson Levine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fairest_audio.jpg\"<\/em><\/p>\n

Fairest,<\/em> by Gail Carson Levine<\/p>\n

Read and Sung by Sarah Naughton and the Full Cast Family<\/p>\n

Music by Todd Hobin<\/p>\n

Full Cast Audio, 2007. Unabridged.<\/p>\n

Review\u00a0written\u00a0January 28, 2008.<\/p>\n

Starred Review.<\/p>\n

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009:\u00a0 #2, Audiobooks.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a delightful audiobook well worth listening to.<\/p>\n

Gail Carson Levine, author of Ella Enchanted<\/em>, has written a wonderful retelling of Snow White.\u00a0 Aza lives in Ayortha, where everyone loves to sing.\u00a0 She\u2019s quite an eyesore, with her pale skin and blood-red lips, but she is blessed with a magnificent voice.<\/p>\n

The Full Cast Audio production of this book advertised that it has more songs than a Broadway musical. This is the perfect tale to listen to, since music is such an important part of the story.<\/p>\n

My expectations were extremely high.\u00a0 Full Cast Audio always does an excellent job, using so many actors for their productions.\u00a0 The book itself was wonderful, and I was looking forward to hearing it done with music.<\/p>\n

Perhaps my expectations were too high, as I was a little bit disappointed.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the Playaway version that I listened to did not have good sound quality (maybe the fault of my headphones?) and tended to static any time anyone hit a high note\u2014definitely detracted from the enjoyment, though that wasn\u2019t the fault of the production.\u00a0 I think I will want to try it again as a Book on CD, because it was good enough to want to listen to again.<\/p>\n

After reading about how wonderful Aza\u2019s voice was, perhaps it was inevitable that I\u2019d be a bit disappointed in any real person trying to play Aza. (Maybe I would have been happy with Charlotte Church?) Sarah Naughton\u2019s voice is definitely nice\u2014it just didn\u2019t quite fit the build-up from the story as being the best voice in the kingdom. In fact, I thought the singing voice of the actress playing Aza\u2019s sister Areta was sweeter.<\/p>\n

There were indeed many, many songs, and they were nice\u2014but I wish there had been a few catchier tunes. Maybe it had more songs than a Broadway musical, but the songs weren\u2019t as memorable as you\u2019d find in a Broadway musical.<\/p>\n

Still\u2014those are just quibbles. The fact is, for a recorded book, this production is tremendous. They didn\u2019t just read the book; they used many different actors to read the book, and they performed all the songs in a book about music. This recorded book is something special.<\/p>\n

I should add that although I was slightly disappointed at first in Aza\u2019s singing voice (though I liked her speaking voice), the Prince\u2019s voice melted my heart. And Queen Ivy\u2019s voice was perfect\u2014her character showed through with every word and every note.<\/p>\n

This production would be a wonderful choice for a family trip in the car. You\u2019ve got a compelling story with music to keep everyone entertained. If the kids have heard the story of Snow White, you\u2019ll have fun discussing how the story is the same, yet different. You can discuss other issues that come up. (How important is beauty? Why did the King love Ivy?) In this case, the recorded book offers even more than the original, because it has music.<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on the main site at:<\/p>\n

www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Fiction\/fairest_audio.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine Read and Sung by Sarah Naughton and the Full Cast Family Music by Todd Hobin Full Cast Audio, 2007. Unabridged. Review\u00a0written\u00a0January 28, 2008. Starred Review. Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009:\u00a0 #2, Audiobooks. Here\u2019s a delightful audiobook well worth listening to. Gail Carson Levine, author of Ella Enchanted, has written a wonderful retelling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,10,43,9,31,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobooks","category-childrens-fiction-review","category-fairy-tale-variant","category-fantasy","category-stand-outs","category-starred-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}