Love from Your Friend, Hannah

Hamilton's chatty, spirited performance is the perfect embodiment of Hannah Diamond, the plucky heroine of Skolsky's epistolary novel. Hannah and her family are lucky to run the successful Grand View Restaurant in Grand View, N.Y., in the late 1930s, when much of the country still suffers the effects of the Great Depression. In fact, tough times are the reason Hannah's best friend, Aggie, moved away. To fill the void in Hannah's life, she begins writing letters not only to Aggie, but to her grandparents, to a new pen pal from Kansas named Edward and even to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While Aggie has yet to write back, Hannah receives a personal response from FDR that leads to a friendly correspondence with the First Family and FDR's secretary. On this finely paced recording, each letter is read by its author (with each actor assuming an appropriate tone and/or accent), drawing listeners into Hannah's many relationships. One small quibble: the actor who plays Edward has the requisite boyish enthusiasm, but his voice has a rich timbre that sounds a bit old for the part. In any event, young listeners will cheer Hannah's very modern go-getter ways and will likely be fascinated by an author's note and the tale's bountiful details about an era gone by. Ages 9-12. (June)