Children's ✦ Penny’s Take 🎧 Audiobook
Drew Leclair Crushes the Case
Katryn Bury · 2023
🎙 Narrated by Devon Hales
63/100
👎 Skip It
A charming, funny middle-grade mystery that Kirkus rightly praised for its humor and heart, with an anxious, asthma-managing heroine kids can root for. The case itself is fairly light and low-stakes, so it's fun more than deep, and I couldn't find much on how the audiobook narration specifically holds up. Worth knowing the cast includes LGBTQ and disabled characters presented matter-of-factly, which some families will want to weigh in advance.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
⚠ Parent note — our reviewers flagged: Includes LGBTQ and disabled characters portrayed matter-of-factly — a heads-up for faith-based households making their own call, though nothing explicit or advocacy-driven.. We still scored it 63; these are context for your family, not an automatic skip.
▶ Listen to a sample
🎙 Narration: unknown No specific critical commentary found on Devon Hales' performance beyond general listener enthusiasm; can't confirm quality either way.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
Faith & family safety78
Substance / usefulness60
Craft & writing65
Originality55
Evidence & accuracy72
Hype vs delivers50
Age-fit78
Human-eye read62
Penny’s verdict63
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