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Black Duck by Janet Taylor Lisle
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Black Duck

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Narrator David Ackroyd

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Length 5 hours 30 minutes
Language English
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When Ruben and Jeddy find a dead body in an evening suit washed up on the shore, they are certain it has to do with smuggling liquor. It is spring 1929, Prohibition is in full swing, and many in their community are involved.

Soon the boys, along with Jeddy’s strong-willed sister, Marina, are drawn in, suspected by rival bootlegging gangs of taking something crucial off the dead man. Then Ruben meets the daring captain of the Black Duck, the most elusive smuggling craft of them all, and it isn’t long before he’s keeping dangerous company.

Inspired by very real accounts of the Black Duck, a legendary rum-running boat that worked the New England shores during the era, Newbery Honor winner Janet Taylor Lisle has produced a colorful, original work of historical fiction.

Janet Taylor Lisle was born in Englewood, New Jersey, and grew up in Farmington, Connecticut, spending summers on the coast of Rhode Island. The eldest and only daughter in a family of five children, she was educated at local schools and at fifteen entered the Ethel Walker School, a girl's boarding school in Simsbury, Connecticut.After graduation from Smith College in 1969 with a degree in English literature, she enlisted and was trained for work in VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). She lived and worked for the next two years in Atlanta, Georgia, organizing food-buying cooperatives in the city's public housing projects and teaching in an early child-care center. Catalyzed by this experience, she enrolled in journalism courses at Georgia State University with the idea of writing about the poverty she had seen. This was the beginning of a reporting career that extended over the next ten years.With the birth of her daughter in 1977, Lisle turned to writing projects that could be accomplished at home. In 1984, The Dancing Cats of Applesap, her first novel for children, was published. Subsequently, she has published ten other novels.

David Ackroyd is an audiobook narrator known for Legacy, Creatures of a Kingdom, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Never Fuck Up, Swamplandia, A Boy and His Bot, First Light, Hoodwinked, and many more.

Janet Taylor Lisle was born in Englewood, New Jersey, and grew up in Farmington, Connecticut, spending summers on the coast of Rhode Island. The eldest and only daughter in a family of five children, she was educated at local schools and at fifteen entered the Ethel Walker School, a girl's boarding school in Simsbury, Connecticut.After graduation from Smith College in 1969 with a degree in English literature, she enlisted and was trained for work in VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). She lived and worked for the next two years in Atlanta, Georgia, organizing food-buying cooperatives in the city's public housing projects and teaching in an early child-care center. Catalyzed by this experience, she enrolled in journalism courses at Georgia State University with the idea of writing about the poverty she had seen. This was the beginning of a reporting career that extended over the next ten years.With the birth of her daughter in 1977, Lisle turned to writing projects that could be accomplished at home. In 1984, The Dancing Cats of Applesap, her first novel for children, was published. Subsequently, she has published ten other novels.

David Ackroyd is an audiobook narrator known for Legacy, Creatures of a Kingdom, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Never Fuck Up, Swamplandia, A Boy and His Bot, First Light, Hoodwinked, and many more.

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Shop the sale

In celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, shop our limited-time sale on bestselling audiobooks from April 22nd-28th. Don’t miss out—purchases support your local bookstore!

Shop now

Reviews

Lots of adventure and mystery. (VOYA)

Riveting mystery and nonstop adventure. (School Library Journal)

The setting's cinematic detail brings the exhilarating action close, and readers will easily see themselves in young Ruben. (Booklist) Expand reviews
Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale