UNDER A PAINTED SKY

A fatal accident puts Samantha, a 15-year-old Chinese girl, on the Oregon Trail with an unlikely companion, a runaway slave named Annamae. Narrator Emily Woo Zeller’s easy pace fits the long, contemplative hours on the trail and affords time to enjoy Lee’s descriptions. With lawmen searching for them, the girls disguise themselves as boys and join a trio of cowboys. Together, the conflicted girls struggle with the trail, desperados, and their feelings toward the boys as they work to to avoid the hangman's noose. Zeller’s nuanced character portrayals require Mandarin, Mexican, African-American, and Scots accents. It’s no easy task to switch from character to character AND between the genders of Samantha and Annamae and their alter egos, Sam and Andy. Zeller does it without a hitch. L.T. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2015]