Wintersong

Gr 9 Up—Eighteen-year-old Liesl has always felt inferior to her younger siblings. Her sister Kathe is beautiful and charming, and brother Josef is a musical genius. But when Kathe is kidnapped by the goblins and taken to the Underground, Liesl knows it is up to her to rescue her sister. The bargain Liesl makes with the Goblin King—exchange Kathe's presence with her own—is both rewarding and confining for Liesl. With the Goblin King she at last finds love and the freedom to compose as much music she wants, but she misses her siblings terribly, and longs to return to the home she knows. Although melodramatic at times, Eva Kaminsky's first-person narration lets listeners genuinely experience Liesl's feelings of angst, terror, jealousy, and wonder. While Kaminsky's breaths are often audible and it is hard to distinguish between some of the voices, she handles the often slow-moving yet always descriptive, lush, and lyrical writing with aplomb.