THE STAR SIDE OF BIRD HILL

With a voice that can shift from the liquid brown sugar of Barbados to Brooklyn’s assertive nasal tones, Robin Miles offers a pitch-perfect reading of Naomi Jackson’s remarkable first novel. The affecting coming-of-age story introduces us to 16-year-old Dionne and 10-year-old Phaedra in the summer of 1989. When their mother isn’t able to care for them back home in Brooklyn, the girls are sent to their grandmother in Barbados. Miles uses a slight change of pace to signal the scenes of memory set in Brooklyn. And she handles shifts in perspective and tone beautifully—exuberant young Phaedra, self-conscious teen Dionne, and world-wise grandmother, as well as offering believable sound portraits of the men in their lives. What a pleasure. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2015]