the journey to the river sea by eva ibbotson

Lauren St John The most perfect children's book.

Any reader presented with this book will be enriched for life captivatingly told, funny and moving' – Nicolette Jones, Sunday TimesĮnchanting and inspiring. Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award (now the Costa). But the wonders of the rainforest more than make up for the hideous twins and their parents.Īnd when Maia meets a mysterious boy who lives alone on the wild river shores, she begins a spectacular journey to the heart of an extraordinary and beautiful new world. Instead she finds two spiteful cousins who see the jungle as the enemy and refuse to go outdoors. She imagines a loving family with whom she will share great adventures. Maia, an orphan, can't wait to reach her distant relatives a thousand miles up the Amazon. She died at her home in Newcastle in 2010, aged eighty-five.A gorgeous 20th anniversary edition of Eva Ibbotson's award-winning, bestselling classic adventure, with a beautiful cover by Katie Hickey and an introduction by award-winning author of Letters from the Lighthouse Emma Carroll.Ī joyous Amazon adventure set in the lush nature of Brazil, Journey to the River Sea is filled with mystery and extraordinary characters.

Despite her late literary start, Eva went on to write more than twenty books for children and won the Smarties Prize for her novel Journey to the River Sea in 2001. The story is ostensibly that of an orphaned girl, Maia, who travels from England to the Amazon in Brazil to begin a new life with the Carters - relatives she has never met before. Eva didn’t start writing until she was in her thirties and her first children’s book, The Great Ghost Rescue, was published in 1975 when she was fifty years old. Journey to the River Sea is an enchanting adventure story from multiple award winning author, Eva Ibbitson.

After realising a career in science wasn’t for her she retrained as a teacher. Eva attended the prestigious Dartington Hall School, before studying Physiology at Cambridge University. Other members of Eva’s family also escaped Vienna and settled in England, and their shared experiences later influenced Eva’s writing, with the themes of home, refugees and immigration running through her books. Born to Jewish parents in Vienna in 1925, at nine years old Eva moved to London to join her mother, a successful novelist and playwright, who had fled Vienna in 1933 after her work was banned by the Nazi authorities. Eva Ibbotson’s life was as adventurous as those of the characters she created in her mystical middle-grade stories and sweeping young adult romances.

The journey to the river sea by eva ibbotson