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The ventriloquists Cover Image E-audiobook E-audiobook

The ventriloquists [electronic resource] / E.R. Ramzipoor.

Ramzipoor, E. R. (Author). Peterson, Nancy. (Narrator). Recorded Books, Inc. (Added Author).

Summary:

In this triumphant debut inspired by true events, a ragtag gang of journalists and resistance fighters risk everything for an elaborate scheme to undermine the Reich. Brussels, 1943. Twelve-year-old street orphan Helene survives by living as a boy and selling copies of the country's most popular newspaper, Le Soir, now turned into Nazi propaganda. Helene's entire world changes when she befriends a rogue journalist, Marc Aubrion, who draws her into a secret network publishing dissident underground newspapers. Aubrion's unbridled creativity and linguistic genius attract the attention of August Wolff, a high-ranking Nazi official tasked with swaying public opinion against the Allies. Wolff captures Aubrion and his comrades and gives them an impossible choice: use the newspaper to paint the Allies as monsters, or be killed. Faced with no decision at all, Aubrion has a brilliant idea: they will pretend to do the Nazis' bidding, but instead they will publish a fake edition of Le Soir that pokes fun at Hitler and Stalin-giving power back to the Belgians by daring to laugh in the face of their oppressors. The ventriloquists have agreed to die for a joke, and they have only eighteen days to tell it. Told with dazzling scope, taut prose and devastating emotion, The Ventriloquists illuminates the extraordinary acts of courage by ordinary people forgotten by history-unlikely heroes who went to extreme lengths to orchestrate the most stunning feat of journalism in modern history.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9781488206771
  • ISBN: 1488206775
  • Physical Description: 1 online resource (20 hr., 20 min.)
  • Edition: Unabridged.
  • Publisher: Toronto : HarperCollins Canada, p2019.

Content descriptions

General Note:
Downloadable audio file.
Participant or Performer Note:
Narrated by Nancy Peterson.
Subject: Fiction.
FICTION / Action & Adventure.
Street children > Fiction.
Journalists > Fiction.
Underground newspapers > Fiction.
World War, 1939-1945 > Fiction.
Brussels (Belgium) > Fiction.
Genre: Downloadable audio books.
Audiobooks.

Electronic resources


  • AudioFile Reviews : AudioFile Reviews 2020 April
    Nancy Peterson gives a soulful performance of this true story based on a WWII resistance group based in Belgium. Fans of literary fiction and dramatic narration will find much to admire in this volume. Helene is a teenager recruited into producing an underground copy of LE SOIR that lampoons Hitler and Nazism at great risk to all involved. Peterson displays her talent as she portrays a wide range of characters--from young Helene to a much older version decades later. For many listeners, this may be the first time they have heard of the historic events being depicted. Peterson tells the complicated and important narrative with flair. M.R. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

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