Title: The Star of Kazan
Author: Eva Ibbotson
Narrator: Patricia Connolly
Length: 10h 15m
Format: Full length story
Age group: 10+
One of our favorite audiobook finds.
When Sigrid and Ellie, maids for a family of Austrian musicians, find a baby abandoned at a small church among the Alps, they are utterly bewildered. They bring the foundling home to Vienna and eventually raise her as their own. All is well until Annika, now a young girl, unexpectedly inherits a box of costume jewelry, and a mysterious German aristocrat emerges claiming to be Annika’s long-lost mother. The series of events that ensue force Annika to discover and define the meaning of home, family, friendship and loyalty.
Ibbotson sets the tale in turn-of-19th-century Vienna, and her love of her own birthplace in its pre-WWI glory comes pouring through. From the dance of the Lippizaner stallions, to the views from the Giant Ferris Wheel, to the allure of Viennese pastries, Ibbotson describes Hapsburgian Vienna in evocative detail.
Patricia Connolly’s vocal dramatization is masterful, accentuating the tension and driving forward the suspenseful plot. Everyone will be hankering to learn eventual Annika’s fate.
Note: This is a long audiobook, and should be paced accordingly. The Connolly narration appears sadly hard to find in digital at the moment. There is an abridged version narrated by Ruth Jones available as audio CDs on Amazon. But if you can find the Connolly version through your local public library, all the better. I’m writing to Audible, Hoopla, etc. to advocate for adding the Conolloy narration to their catalog…curious if my request will have any effect!
Access: The link above is through Audible at Amazon.com. Depending upon where you live in the world, you can likely also access this audiobook for free through your public library and other resources that I am blogging about, like Hoopla.
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