Iron Thunder

By: Avi

Narrated by: Tyler Greenlaw

Afterhis father is killed fighting for the Union, 13-year-old Tom Carroll takes a job at a Brooklyn ironworks to support his family. He quickly learns that they are building an iron-clad, "unsinkable" ship to be called the Monitor to finally sink the Confederates' "unsinkable" ship, the Merrimac.

This is a brilliantly told description of a major sea battle through the eyes of a teenaged boy who both helped build the Monitor and fought on it.

©2009 Avi (P)2010 AudioGO

Listens like it's read for a 12 year old

It's hard to tell if it's the way it was written or if it's the inflection of the reader. One way or the other it sounds like I'm listening to a middle school book report.

Fantastic!

This book is both entertaining and gives you a lot of information on historical events. The characters are great and the story is great 👍

Great Story! Poor narration

This story is very gripping. When I noticed the length I was worried it would be just a short, detail-heavy description of the battle and the construction of the ships prior to it. But the buildup is intense and the subplot of Tom being harassed by a southern Copperhead spy adds intrigue and kept my interest piqued. The short length also makes this feel more like a fun adventure romp through a rousing naval battle rather than just a dusty history story.

The length is also helpful in another way: Tyler Greenlaw's narration is not the best. I like his voice fine and actually found myself enjoying listening to him at the end. Still, this feels more like a somewhat decent read-aloud rather than a professional narration. The pacing is stunted and can be jarring at times and Greenlaw's skill at accents is incredibly disappointing. All of the adults sound exactly the same and there is no attempt at cultural accents or tones, he just slips into a deeper voice that sounds like a little kid impersonating an adult. The length was all that kept me going at the beginning. If this had been more than 3 hours, I would have given up.

That said, I recommend this audiobook. It's fun, it's short, and it spikes interest in history. You'll get used to the narration and be thankful for a chance to hear a great story by a great author.

Story, yes. Narrator, not so much.

I liked the story. but the narrator is what killed it for me. They are good narrator, but this book was not a good match for them.

I struggled to finish this book because of that. When I sat down and just pushed through it, the story became so intriguing, and I started to like it a lot.

Clunky

Entire book was written in sentence fragments. It was annoying and clunky. I have the physical copy of the book as well and tried to read it, but listened to it as well. Neither method worked for me. I feel for the narrator because it's hard to know what emotion the author is trying to portray when its all sentence fragments and one word dialogues.

inadequate narrator

I believe the story is good but the narration is inadequate and very lacking in deliverance.