Review of: A Cry From Egypt - Radio Theatre

Today's review is from Arlene (age 16.) I'll post my final thoughts at the end.

-Carol

We had the pleasure this past convention season to meet Hal and Melanie Young, owners of Great Waters Press. You may recognize their names as prominent homeschool speakers, because of their blog Raising Real Men, or because we have reviewed their products before. What we are reviewing now goes along with one of those products: A Cry from Egypt by Hope Auer. When we were at convention I just had to pick up a copy of the second book in the series, A Stand At Sinai. (For those of you who have read the first book but not the second it is just as good!) While purchasing the second book, Mrs. Young told me about a Radio Theatre of A Cry From Egypt Miss Auer had done. (She also told me about how the third book is coming out soon.) Mrs. Young said that Hope did community theater work in their hometown, and had gotten them all together to do a radio theater production of A Cry from Egypt. This sounded cool and she offered me a copy on the promise that I would do a review. (Sorry it took me so long Mrs. Young!) If you'd like to know the plot of the story I will simply direct you to our original review of the book instead of writing that part of the review over again. 

Let's started the beginning. For those of you who might not know, radio theater is like watching a play with your eyes closed, however there is narrator. Because the production is of the entire book this radio theatre is over 4 and 1/2  hours long. Being radio theater instead of one single narrator means that there are a lot of voices to keep track of.  They don't announce themselves before every time they speak. Because of this I would recommend having a copy of the book on hand just in case you get confused about who is speaking, especially for younger children. 

I will let you know that this is recommended for ages 10 and up due to some intense scenes. However there is no upper age limit, as this is a story that both I, when I first read it at the age of 12, and my mother, enjoyed. I enjoy the radio theater style as adds a bit of a different angle than just an audiobook might. You may ask “But it will sound like I thought the characters would?”  I have good news! Rest assured that the characters at least sounded to me like I thought they would. 

The soundtrack is superb as the composer combines Egyptian and Hebrew sounding music to give it just the right tone. Mrs. Young told me that she spoke to the composer even though they knew that he was out of the budget. She sent him a copy of the recording and he loved it so much that he gave him a huge discount. So that just goes to prove you never know what will happen unless you ask! You might also ask “What should I expect when I open the box?” The answer is easy: the 5 CDs come in a DVD-style case that is easy to transport.  I loved it and it sounds so good! I could go on but at this point you should probably just get your own copy! Have fun listening.

From Carol:

Arlene is correct, this is an excellent production of Radio Theatre. The people who voiced  the characters from the book did a great job! From the youngest to the oldest they are well done, and capture the personalities of the characters quite well. I was excited to listen after Melanie Young had told us about the production of the Radio Theatre and how Hope Auer directed the cast which included younger siblings and grandparents as well as her usual community of actors. 

A Cry From Egypt was selected as the 2014 Christian Small Publishers Book of the Year. An award well deserved for a story that both entertains and educates teens, pre-teens, and adults about life in ancient Egypt.  The Radio Theatre version was worth the wait. I was impressed by how well the characters are portrayed, the quality of the sound effects and the musical score. 

The Radio Theatre version of A Cry From Egypt is available from the RaisingRealMen.com store as either the 5 CD set or as an mp3 download. It would make a great gift. If you haven't read the book version  of A Cry From Egypt yet, let me encourage you to select the set of both books with the radio theatre. Right now it is on sale and you'll save on shipping if you get them all at once!

A big Thank You to Hal and Melanie Young from RaisingRealMen.com and Great Waters Press for continually being on the lookout for new and exciting, faith and family building books and audios to share with our families and friends!  Now I just need to convince Arlene to write a review of A Stand at Sinai!

Disclaimer: We received a free copy of this product in exchange for our honest review. We were not required to write a positive review, nor were we compensate din any other way. All opinions are ours. We are disclosing this in accordance with FTC regulations.