Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Loud Silence of Francine Green
    Unavailable
    The Loud Silence of Francine Green
    Unavailable
    The Loud Silence of Francine Green
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Loud Silence of Francine Green

    Written by Karen Cushman

    Narrated by Anaka Shockley

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Read the ebook instead

    About this audiobook

    Francine lives down the street from a Hollywood film studio, adores screen dreamboat Montgomery Clift, and sometimes sees her home life as a scene from a movie: Dinner at the Greens. She wishes she were a movie star, brave and glamorous and always ready to say the right thing. In reality, she's a "pink and freckled" thirteen-year-old, and she doesn't speak up because she's afraid she'll get in trouble. She's comfortable following her father's advice: "Don't get involved."

    That is, until Sophie Bowman transfers into her class at All Saints School for Girls. Fearless, articulate, and passionate, Sophie questions authority and protests injustice. She not only doesn't care about getting in trouble, she actually seems to be looking for it. And she's happy to be Francine's best friend.

    The nuns think Sophie is a bad influence on Francine. Francine thinks just the opposite. Because of Sophie, Francine finds herself worrying about things that never bothered her before-the atom bomb, free speech, Communists, the blacklist . . . and deciding, for the first time, that she wants to be heard.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 22, 2006
    ISBN9780739337226
    Author

    Karen Cushman

    Karen Cushman's acclaimed historical novels include Catherine, Called Birdy, a Newbery Honor winner, and The Midwife's Apprentice, which received the Newbery Medal. She lives on Vashon Island in Washington State. Visit her online at karencushman.com and on Twitter @cushmanbooks.

    More audiobooks from Karen Cushman

    Related to The Loud Silence of Francine Green

    Related audiobooks

    Children's Religious For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Facing The Empty Nest, With A Song

      Jun 25, 2018

      NOT SO LONG AGO, PARENTS OLD enough to send their kids off to college would wind down a hectic day by spinning Frank Sinatra and Doris Day on the hi-fi. Today’s version of those parents have Sonic Youth and Sleater-Kinney on their Spotify. In Brett

      1 min read

    • Article

      What I’m Into

      Jun 27, 2021

      What I’m Into
      1 min read

    • Article

      NOT JUST A fleabag

      May 25, 2020

      NOT JUST A fleabag
      5 min read

    • Article

      Bonus Answers

      Dec 27, 2016

      What scary movie did you see way too young as a child, how’d you end up seeing it, and does it still scare you now? I remember seeing and being scared by The Prodigy’s “Firestarter” video when I was like 10 and assuming that it was Marilyn Manson, be

      8 min read

    • Article

      On Agnès Varda’s Vagabond

      Jul 9, 2018

      On Agnès Varda’s Vagabond
      5 min read

    • Article

      Paul Mescal

      Oct 13, 2022

      You’re in your mid-20s, playing a dad. Was it a leap? Yeah, there’s lots of space to cross. I’m not a father, I don’t have a daughter, but from my side of things you approach every character from the same point. Sometimes there’s more distance to tra

      1 min read

    • Article

      ‘No One Felt Guilty About Having Fun’ – Sadie Frost On The 90s, Dracula And Turning Her Back On Hollywood

      Oct 11, 2022

      In the pub, in a village so quaint it has a duck pond and jars of homemade pickled onions for sale outside cottages, they are talking about the celebrity who has moved in nearby. At least one customer does a comedy double-take when, five minutes late

      8 min read

    • Article

      Elle raiser!

      May 7, 2020

      Elle raiser!
      7 min read

    • Article

      Turning Red

      Mar 23, 2022

      Turning Red
      2 min read

    • Article

      How Leyna Bloom Became The First Transgender Actress Of Color To Star In A Film At Cannes

      May 20, 2019

      CANNES, France - Leyna Bloom turned up at the Port Authority bus terminal at 17 with one red suitcase and nowhere to put it. She'd saved up a little money working part time at McDonald's and Starbucks on the South Side of Chicago, the place she'd lef

      5 min read

    • Article

      What I’m Into

      Mar 28, 2021

      What I’m Into
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Rookie: Feds

      Aug 25, 2022

      The Rookie: Feds
      1 min read

    • Article

      Perfectly Blunt

      Mar 5, 2020

      Perfectly Blunt
      6 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Aug 21, 2020

      One critic described The Lightness as the love child of Donna Tartt and Tana French, and that’s a pretty good description. Sixteen-year-old Olivia has run away to The Levitation Center, a remote retreat and the last place her father had been to befo

      5 min read

    • Article

      Do You Love Me Now?

      Aug 1, 2018

      Do You Love Me Now?
      7 min read

    Reviews for The Loud Silence of Francine Green

    3.5/5

    87 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Somewhat considered historical fiction because of it's references to certain 1950's/60's characteristics. Could still be applicable to modern readers / realistic fiction.
    • 4/5
      In 1949, thirteen-year-old Francine goes to Catholic school in Los Angeles where she becomes best friends with a girl who questions authority and is frequently punished by the nuns, causing Francine to question her own values.
    • 4/5
      Cushman, known for her incredible teen novels set in medieval times, breaks from that time period up into the 1950s with great success. This is the story of Francine Green, a teen who lives in Hollywood and adores all things to do with movies, especially Montgomery Clift. Francine is a quiet girl, always worried about doing the right thing and avoiding trouble. When she becomes best friends with fearless Sophie, she struggles with her own need to not be in the spotlight. Sophie is loud, brash and always getting into trouble, often seemingly deliberately. As the world around them begins to change, Francine is forced to examine whether she can stay quiet as McCarthyism begins to affect the people she loves. As always Cushman's prose is inventive, gloriously clear, and inviting. She has created two teenage girls who are polar opposites but manage to be best friends. Both of the teens as well as their very different families ring true with the adults becoming more human throughout the novel. This is an important novel for teens today to read. The parallels between McCarthyism and today's American society are alarming. Teens will feel themselves called to be vocal about the changes we see happening around us today. Recommend this novel for classroom sharing and discussion. It will generate it. I would also recommend it for book talking.
    • 5/5
      Set around 1950, Catholic School eighth grader Francine deals with sadistic Sister "Rotten", the communist Cold War scare, decisions about how to choose friends, typical family relationship issues, and just being a pre-teen in Hollywood in the mid-20th century. Characterizations are perhaps a bit too overused or trite (the mean nun, the prissy older sister and bratty but sweet younger brother, the radical friend), but the setting seems right on.
    • 3/5
      Narrated by Anaka Shockley. I kept drifting off listening to the audio version and had to backtrack quite a bit. I plan to revisit in the print edition.

      13-year-old Francine lives in Los Angeles, home of Hollywood movies and glamour. She’s an expert on the movie stars including Montgomery Clift and she attends a Catholic all-girls’ school. There she meets Sophie Bowman who has transferred to her class, having been kicked out of her previous school. Sophie is outspoken and passionate and her provocative views on free speech, Communism and the bomb stir up trouble with the nuns. Francine is more accustomed to “not getting involved” as her father advises, but being with Sophie challenges some of her long-held beliefs about the ways of the world.
    • 4/5
      This is quite a timeless story. I mean, it’s set in the fifties and during the Red Scare, but the characters could be people anywhere, at any time. It teaches a good lesson about prejudice and the need to take a stand for what you believe in. The only problems I had with it were that Sophie was extremely annoying at times, and that I'm afraid people would get the wrong idea of religion, since all the nuns in this story were so evil. But those are minor quibbles -- this is on the whole an excellent book.
    • 4/5
      Karen Cushman’s new historical fiction book is modern compared to her other novels. The Loud Silence of Francine Green takes place in 1950’s Los Angeles during the height of the Red Scare and McCarthyism. Thirteen year old Francine attends All Saints School for Girls, and is constantly being told, by her parents, her teachers, and her confessor, to keep quiet and do as she is told. On the other hand, her new best friend, Sophie, encourages her, by example, to speak out against what is wrong and to question authority. Francine is both embarrassed and inspired by Sophie’s fearless antics, which often lead to Sophie’s standing in the waste basket, Sister Basil’s favorite form of punishment. Francine’s friendship with Sophie causes her to wonder if the advice of the adults in her life to “keep quiet” and “don’t get involved” is really the best advice. We see Francine mature in this book, but not too much - the scene where Francine decides to call the Pope for advice reminds us that she is very much still a child. Cushman endows Francine with a genuine and endearing voice. It sometimes feels like Cushman is trying too hard to illustrate the effects that the fear of Communism had on people, with Francine’s father building a bomb shelter in the backyard, and a family friend of Sophie’s being blacklisted for his political beliefs. Altogether though, the book works, and by novels end we see a more mature Sophie that has grown in courage and self-confidence.