Monster

Young Steve Harmon, the 16-year-old narrator, is a promising filmmaker who, in an attempt to get some distance from the felony murder he is charged with and the bleakness of his future if convicted, narrates the story of his trial in the form of a movie screenplay he might make. This interesting idea is fraught with unfortunate consequences for both reader and listener. Peter Francis James, at his best with the rolling cadences of Southern Black dialect, is forced into a series of annoying interruptions: "voice over . . ." and "cut to . . ." Young Steve Harmon gets his distance, but, unfortunately, so does the listener. A compelling story and powerful reader are offered up to a gimmicky form. P.E.F. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

May 14, 2001
. "Myers bends the novel form for this riveting courtroom drama that explores the guilt or innocence of a teenage boy involved in a murder," wrote PW
in a Best Books citation. Ages 12-up.

What if you were 16 years old, on trial for felony murder, and your degree of guilt had become confused within your own mind? How would you discover the truth? Monster, winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, is written as the screenplay that prisoner Steve Harmon creates during his incarceration and trial, in an attempt to reconstruct and reconfigure the events of the crime. The production is recorded as a full-cast dramatization, and it's difficult to imagine how it might have been accomplished more effectively. The youth and innocence of Jeron Alston's voice, as Steve, summons the listener into his limited reality and serves as a counterpoint to the authenticity of the courtroom drama, presented through the voices of the prosecutor, the D.A., the defendants, and the witnesses. Flashbacks deliver the backstory and raise essential doubts in the mind of the listener. A superb recording of an intriguing work. T.B. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine