I am NOT a fan of survival fiction ("Hatchet" annoyed the crud out of me. If Brian had said "the secret" melodramatically one more time, I was gonna take him back to the woods and leave him there...oh, wait that was the sequel!). I am, however, a big fan of Rorby's fictions. "Hurt Go Happy" is one of my favorite books of all time & I quite enjoyed "Outside of a Horse" and "Dolphin Sky." This one is just great too. The spoiler-free synopsis is: Sarah, a city girl, scholarship student at Glades Academy, a private high school, is on a field trip with her snooty fellow students when she meets Andy, a cute boy who lives in the glades (instead of going to a school named after them) and who happens to have access to his fathers airboat. To avoid a day of being stuck with a bunch of girls with their noses in the air, Sarah says yes to a picnic with Andy (and fakes sick on the field trip). The two stop on an island for their snack...and find themselves stranded ten miles out in the wetlands. What follows is a four day struggle for survival. I was, quite frankly, amazed at the level of detail in their encounters with nature. And I am a sucker for a duck book ("Duck" has been my nickname since high school, thanks Francesca Lia Block) and there is a baby duck named Teapot that figures prominently. Two realistic teen characters presented warts, fears, strengths and all. I did not want to put this down. It says YA on the back, but Sarah is "almost 14" and Andy is 15, so I would recommend this to kids (especially girls who are sick and tired of damsels in distress whether they are rescued by princes or vampires or plain old boys) ages 10 & up. There's a little surprise at the end that will make you go back through and reread it! It's just as I put the paperback cover on top up there because it is SO much more enticing than the cut-outs-in-the-water hardcover cover. SO glad they changed it! And now our truth-in-reviewing moment, I am friends with Ginny Rorby...that came about because of "Hurt Go Happy" but that's another story. I can tell you that if I didn't love love love this you wouldn't be reading about it here regardless of my knowing the author. |
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About MeTim is a writer, book reviewer and Librarian. He has a Master's of Library Science and was on the Newbery Committee twice. Technology scares and often annoys him, but he is always game for a silly costume! Archives
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