River Boy - Hardcover

Bowler, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0689829086 ISBN 13: 9780689829086

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry, 2000

Synopsis

A suspenseful novel follows Jess as she accompanies her ailing grandfather to his boyhood home where he can complete his painting River Boy and discovers a weird presence in the river--a boy who issues a challenge that might save her Grandpa's life.

About this title

Review:

"She needed to swim. To be deprived of swimming would be like a perverse kind of drowning. She loved the sensation of power and speed, the feeling of glistening in a bed of foam." Jess is a passionate distance swimmer, and has been looking for a unique water challenge to test her endurance. But when her adored grandfather, an irascible artist, suffers a heart attack, she focuses all her energy on making him well.

Though weak and perhaps dying, her grandfather insists that the family still take their planned vacation--a trip to the rural countryside where he spent his boyhood. There, Jess finds a river that is perfect for swimming, the same river that is the inspiration for her grandfather's latest painting, titled River Boy. As the shadowy image of a boy takes shape on her grandfather's canvas, Jess encounters her own river boy, a mysterious young man who seems to be able to swim as well as she does. In discovering how the two "river boys" are related, Jess finds both the swimming challenge she has been searching for and a graceful way to cope with her grandfather's passing.

British author Tim Bowler gently illustrates the fear of a loved one's passing by using a river's timeless flow as a metaphor for the journey of life. Teens will relate to Jess's frustration with her lack of control over her grandfather's situation, while being moved to a better understanding and acceptance of death. River Boy is the winner of the 1998 Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's literature. (Ages 11 and older) --Jennifer Hubert

About the Author:

Tim Bowler was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, in 1953, and lived for many years in a house overlooking the Thames Estuary, where his first novel, Midget, was set. In college, he majored in Swedish and Scandinavian studies, after which he worked in a variety of fields, including forestry and the timber trade. He then went into teaching and became Head of Modern Languages at a school in Devon, England, where he lives. Mr. Bowler is now a full-time freelance writer and translator. In 1995, he started to think about a new book based on the love he felt for his late grandfather, one that would use images of water and swimming as spiritual metaphors. Then one afternoon his wife came home with a painting of a river -- and the next morning he started working on River Boy, which went on to win the 1998 Carnegie Medal.

About this edition

• Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0689829086
• ISBN 13: 9780689829086
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160
• Illustrator: Olbinski Rafal