Title: The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas #3
Author: Rod Serling and Others
Illustrator:
Publisher and/or Distributor: Falcon Picture Group
Publisher Website: www.twightlightzoneradio.com
Pages: 4 CDs
ISBN: 1-59171-062-6
Price: $27.99
Publishing Date: 2003
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 hearts
These are well-mastered digital presentations of The Twilight Zone radio dramas. I received Collection #3, consisting of four dramas starring John Ratzenberger, Andrea Evans, Chelcie Ross, and Mike Starr. There are a total of 156 dramas with real-life commercials sprinkled throughout each one. These are 40-minute scripts, which have been expanded from the original 23-minute TV scripts. They come in packages of four.
Those of us who spent hours of our misspent youths listening to radio dramas (before TV had proliferated), will love these presentations. In fact, they're novel enough to please younger listeners as well. We rated them five hearts based on the quality of the stories, the actor readers, and the digital mastering.
Title: Philadelphia Chickens
Author: Sandra Boynton
Illustrator: Sandra Boynton
Publisher and/or Distributor: Workman Publishing
Publisher Website: www.workman.com
Pages: 70
ISBN: 0-7611-2636-8
Price: $16.95
Publishing Date: 2002
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5 Hearts
Philadelphia Chickens is a book/musical-CD combination for all ages (except 43, according to the author). The book's illustrations are very cute and the song lyrics are mostly child-like; however, there is an adult depth to them as well. The musical CD is to die for. The music spoofs several distinct styles: there is a bouncy song about cows that sounds like something out of Chorus Line. Meryl Streep sings a nonsense-word torch song about no one being able to understand her. The title track, Philadelphia Chickens, steps right out of a Tommy Dorsey swing arrangement. There is even a wonderful Gilbert and Sutherland spoof of how busy everyone is.
This has been the surprise of our bookstore's holiday season. It's clearly one of the easiest handsells we've ever had come along. As I demo the CD to customers, their reaction is, "Wow, I'll take one, no, I'll take two or three". We sold thirty of these the first week we had them and began taking orders for more. We ended up selling more of these than any other title we've ever sold, except for Harry Potter, of course. This combination definitely rates five hearts.
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publisher and/or Distributor: Harper Collins Children
Publisher Website: www.harperaudio.com
Pages: 218 minutes
ISBN: 0-06-051048-X
Price: $22
Publishing Date: 2002
Reader: Bob Spear
Rating: 5
Coraline is a decidedly weird and extremely good middle grade horror/fantasy about a young girl, Coraline, and her parents, who move into a flat that is actually part of a much larger house. A door at the end of the hall is kept locked for no reason, since the other side of the door is a bricked up opening. Coraline opens the door one day to find the bricks no longer there and a flat on the other side, which looks just like her own. It even has her "other" parents, who claim they love her and feed her much better food than what she gets at home, even if they have black buttons for eyes. The story gets weirder and weirder. She discovers the ghosts of other children who have been trapped there and her real parents disappear. Then her "other" mother begins turning nasty.
The author narrates this story in various voices with the creepiest sounding backup band laying down some really strange sounding songs, setting the mood perfectly. Although the author's matter-of-fact British accent sometimes slows the pace a little, he more than makes up for it with his character voices and superlative story line. We rated this audio book five hearts.
Title: In Their Own Words Series
Editor: Marc Honorof
Publisher and/or Distributor: First Person Production Audio Books
Publisher Website: www.firstpersonaudio.com
Publishing Date: 2002
Recording Time: 4+ hours each
Price: $19.95 each
ISBN: 0-9715690-0-2, 0-9715690-1-0, 0-9715690-2-9
Reviewer: Bob Spear
Rating: 5
The In Their Own Words Series is a wonderful documentary series with dramatic musical and narration interludes about the 2nd World War produced by Emmy award-winning Hollywood producer, Marc Honorof. This reviewer listened to three of the series CD packages: D-Day, Race Across Europe, and War in the Pacific. These were interviewer-prompted oral histories as related by the soldiers and officers who fought in these wars. Although old men now, these participants related war stories as though they happened yesterday. The detail was spellbinding. This collection is a work of art which will be appreciated by all who cherish this generation of patriotic heroes who did what had to be done to assure our freedoms. What a wonderful surprise it was to have these magically appear in our mailbox. Thanks First Person! We rated this series a high five hearts!
