Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope

Jenna Bush is the daughter of President George W. Bush and Mrs. Laura Bush. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004 with a degree in English. Jenna taught elementary school in Washington, D.C. for a year and half before embarking on an internship for UNICEF's Educational Policy department at its regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Fall 2006. During her internship, Jenna recorded the life stories of children and adolescents she met through her travels. She taught at a shelter in Latin America several days a week while writing this book.

Mia Baxter graduated from the University of Texas in 2004 with a Bachelor's degree in Photojournalism and a minor in Spanish. An internship with the Corporate Art department at Conde Nast led to a job as Photo Assistant at Glamour magazine in New York. She worked as a freelance editorial and documentary photographer in New York before moving to Latin America in September 2005 for an internship with UNICEF. Mia believes in photography as a significant and compelling tool in visual communication. She has been photographing the lives of children and adolescents in Latin America with UNICEF for the last several months.

Jenna Bush's protagonist, Ana, is an amalgam of the poor, abused, neglected, and ill young women she met while working with UNICEF in Latin America. Bush's performance in the reading of Ana's story is straightforward. Her voice is pleasant, soft, and clear, and the story's frequent use of Spanish allows her to demonstrate her facility with the language. The structure of the book, however, offers a challenge to the audio format. Chapters are short, sometimes only a few sentences in length. The resulting fragmented presentation breaks the flow of the narrative in a manner that can become an annoying distraction. Further, President Bush's daughter's voice lacks a broad emotional range. Nonetheless, she conveys an intensity and sincerity that make her inaugural foray into print and audio a success. M.O.B. 2008 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine