America

Told as a first-person account in sequential chapters of "Then" and "Now," protagonist America's nightmare unfolds before the listener. Born to a crack-addicted mother, racially mixed, sexually abused, and abandoned, America is lost in the welfare system until he attempts suicide at 16. He's sent to an adolescent treatment facility, where he encounters Dr. B. Eventually therapy forces the angry, suspicious youngster to confront his past and find himself. J.D. Jackson's performance transforms America's street language into heartbreaking poetry. Jackson never panders to the material, giving the ring of truth to every word. E.R. Frank turns one boy's search for sanity in an insane world into an indictment of a society that discards its children. Brutal, not for the squeamish, Jackson's performance of an American original is remarkable. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

August 11, 2003

In what PW
called, in a starred review, a "well-crafted and moving story of forgiveness—both of oneself and others," a teenage boy named America, living in a treatment facility after a suicide attempt, alternates between the present and the past. Ages 12-up.