The Water is Wide

Conroy, Pat

ISBN 10: 1441815090 ISBN 13: 9781441815095

Publisher: Brilliance Audio, 2010

Synopsis

The bestselling Pat Conroy memoir

The moving story of a young teacher’s experience on an island forgotten by the world

Though the children of Yamacraw Island live less than two miles from the coast of South Carolina, they can’t name the president or the ocean that surrounds them. Many can’t sign their names. Most can’t read or write—they’re unable to reach their potential to grow and learn because they have been failed by their school district and handicapped by their poverty and isolation. But with the arrival of an eager young teacher, their prospects begin to brighten.

Based on Pat Conroy’s experiences teaching elementary school for a year on South Carolina’s Daufuskie Island, The Water Is Wide is a revealing portrait of the inequalities of the American education system and a powerful story of the group of children that changed one man’s life forever.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

This heartrending story of the difference one man can make became the basis for the first film based on a Pat Conroy work, the much-loved Conrack.

The Water is Wide

Yamacraw Island is nearly deserted. No one has paid much attention to it, nor to the few poor black families that live there. But this beautiful, haunting slip of land across the water from South Carolina is home to them, and they've lived off the bounty from the sea for generations.

But now their very existence is challenged. Industrial waste, pouring into the water from which they pull their catches, threatens the only vocation they've known. Unless they can learn a new way of life, they will surely perish. The Water is Wide is the true story of a young white schoolteacher -- a man who gave a year of his life to give an island and a people renewed hope. He becomes the teacher to their children, and teaches the adults of Yamacraw Island extraordinary lessons they didn't even know they needed to learn.

With a moving performance by Will Patton, Pat Conroy teaches us all about the triumph of the human spirit in the most desolate of circumstances.

From the Inside Flap

The island is nearly deserted, haunting, beautiful. Across a slip of ocean lies South Carolina. But for the handful of families on Yamacraw island, America is a world away. For years the people here lived proudly from the sea, but now its waters are not safe. Waste from industry threatens their very existence?unless, somehow, they can learn a new life. But they will learn nothing without someone to teach them, and their school has no teacher.

Here is PAT CONROY?S extraordinary drama based on his own experience?the true story of a man who gave a year of his life to an island and the new life its people gave him.

Edition details

• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1441815090
• ISBN 13: 9781441815095
• Binding: MP3 CD
• Language: English