ReadPlus

Review:
Journey to Eureka by Kerry Greenwood
Read by Francis Greenslade. Hawthorn, Vic : Louis Braille Audio, 2006
4 CDs , 5 hours
ISBN 0 7320 3137 0
Age 11+ This is a well researched and absorbing story telling the story of a young Welsh boy and his journey to the Australian gold fields in 1854. Llew Jones anxiously cheats his passage onto a boat bound for Melbourne to follow his convict mother Arianrhod and his Uncle Gwydion. With a flair for languages and for making friends, Llew is taken in by the Rowlands family on board ship and becomes like a son to Mrs Rowlands. He is also befriended by the ship’s doctor and his daughter. Once in Australia, he is forced to make difficult choices between his natural mother and his new found family who love him. He also witnesses the violent Eureka Stockade.
Francis Greenslade’s reading makes this an enthralling and memorable story to listen to. He has a deep rich mature voice and speaks with a beautiful Welsh accent. One of the themes of the book is the multicultural nature of the migrants who are crossing the ocean to Australia and Greenslade’s rendering of the different languages, Welsh, Scots, Italian, Erse (Irish) and French, the psalms and the songs, is very well done.
Although Greenslade’s voice is so mature, and as a narrator, he makes no effort to make it light or sound like a young boy, the listener is quite aware all the time that it is a young boy who is recounting the story. Women’s voices were made only slightly lighter, but it is very easy to distingush between the different people and the end of chapters.

Pat Pledger

Home