Synopses & Reviews
"She didn't know how fast the current was moving her. It could take many more hours yet, perhaps more hours than she had the strength for. But she must not stop. She must keep going. She must try to catch the river boy, even though she was frightened at the thought of what he was."
Jess's beloved grandfather has just had a serious heart attack, but he insists that the family travel as planned to his boyhood home on the river so that he can finish his painting, "River Boy." As Jess helps her ailing grandpa with his work, she becomes entranced by the scene he is painting. Then she becomes aware of a strange presence in the river -- a boy who asks for her help and issues a challenge that will stretch her swimming talents to their very limit. Jess knows that Grandpa and the river boy are connected, but how? Can she take up the river boy's challenge before it's too late for Grandpa?
Tim Bowler's gripping narrative flows like a river itself -- gentle and calm at times, turbulent and deep at others, always fluid, always alive. Readers will be swept along by the magic of the river and the mysterious river boy -- and changed forever by Jess's unforgettable journey.
Synopsis
Knowing that he is dying, Jess's grandfather insists on returning to the river he had known as a boy to finish a special painting and fulfill a life-long dream. Winner of the 1998 Carnegie Medal.
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.