I am NOT a fan of survival fiction ("Hatchet" annoyed the crud out of me). 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 is just great.

The spoiler-free synopsis is: Sarah, a city girl, scholarship student at 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. 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.

Two realistic teen characters presented warts, fears, and threngths 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.

(After some of the doodie I read this year, I am just so dang happy to round off my year with areally great read! Give it a try).

A good survival story - perhaps a bit too long, but maybe it just felt like that because it was a Book Match Book I wrote questions for in the thick of Summer Reading.

This book was really good! I connected with this book because I've been to Florida several times and been on an airboat. Thankfully I didn't get lost; not to mention I was with a huge group of people.

I felt Sarah's emotions to be very realistic. I'm a lot older than she is and I most likely would've acted just like her: screamy, whiny, tired, hungry, hot, scared. And if I had been her age when this happened to me, I probably would've died immediately. I admired that she had the strength to persevere and had a big character change by the end.

The thing that did bother me, however, is that SARAH JUST WENT OFF WITH ANDY, a STRANGER!!!! She's lucky he didn't turn out to be working with a serial killer (or a serial killer, age don't judge). When I first started reading, I thought Andy might end up being a psycho. I have read real-life news stories about tour guides being murderers, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. I'm glad he wasn't though.

Teapot was probably my favorite character. I will admit that Sarah's "save all animals from the circle of life" and "protect my karma by taking care of these animals" got annoying and frankly, was senseless.

This book definitely made me want to go back to the Everglades.

This and other reviews can be found on Reading Between Classes

Cover Impressions: Not a huge fan of the cover. Don't get me wrong, the alligator on a whole new level of scary, but there is something with the title and the font that makes this feel like a homemade job.

The Gist: Feeling like an outcast on a school trip to the Everglades, Sarah fakes sick in order to explore the swamp with Andy, a local boy. When a simple mistake leaves them stranded, they begin the harrowing trek back to civilization, facing the Everglades in all their danger and splendor.

Review: I was immensely surprised by this novel. In fact, I read it in a day. Were it not for the disruptions of my 9 mth old, I probably would have read it in one sitting without so much as a bathroom break.

Rorby has created characters that are undeniably realistic. They are flawed, impatient and self-absorbed in a way that only teenagers can be. At the beginning of the book, Sarah is painfully lonely and attempts to simply keep her head down and avoid the mockery of her classmates. She is afraid of everything in the swamp and whines incessantly. By the end, however, she has proven her bravery time and time again and come to appreciate the beauty of the swamp (despite the fact that nearly everything in it wanted to eat her!). Andy has lived his whole life in the Everglades. He is very typical of any teenage boy - risking the ire of his parents in order to impress a pretty girl. Despite his willingness to take charge, he falters several times and leaves Sarah certain that she must orchestrate her own rescue.

The characters are well written, but where Rorby really shines is in the plot and the pacing. This is a novel that never left me bored. The moments where Sarah and Andy came into (far too close) contact with the wildlife of the Everglades were always tense and often terrifying. To say that I was absorbed in the story would be an understatement as I found myself holding my breath for many of these encounters and praying that the characters (and Teapot) would come out unscathed.

Spoiler

One of the issues that I had at the beginning of the novel was that no real physical description of Sarah was provided. Without these details, I was forced to pull her image together on my own. Towards the end of the novel, however, it is revealed that Sarah is black and that clearly, this information was withheld on purpose. This information sheds new light onto several scenes from earlier in the book and elevates this novel from one that merely celebrates two young people's strength and instinct to survive, to one that challenges preconceptions and forces the reader to examine their own worldview.

Lost in the River of Grass should appeal to both male and female teen readers (and adults of course) and would provide an excellent jumping off point for discussion of bias, presumption and how new information can change how a story is viewed.

Teaching/Parental Notes:

Age: 12 and up
Gender: Both
Sex: Kissing
Violence: Animal attacks
Inappropriate Language: Asses
Substance Use/Abuse: Discussion of marijuana use

Really enjoyed the adventure. Read it at the same time as some of the 6th graders at my school. Was great to talk with them about it.

Sarah is the odd man out on a field trip to the Everglades. She is a scholarship student at her preppy school and doesn't fit in with the other kids. So it is no surprise when she pretends to be sick to get out of an outing. Instead she accepts the invitation of Andy, camp owners son, to take an airboat ride. The ride is exhilarating and scary, but even more scary is finding the boat sunk after their picnic lunch. Seems Andy forgot to put the plug back in after washing the boat. Now he and Sarah are stuck 10 miles from camp and no one knows where they are. They have to trek through the Everglades and evade alligators, wild boars, snakes and tons of bugs all with no food or water.

This was a very good, realistic survival story. Andy and Sarah are world's apart. He is a redneck hick and she is a city girl scared of everything in the wild. She starts off pretty whiny with a chip on her shoulder. We don't realize until the end what the chip is and I wasn't sure why it was saved that long; it didn't seem like that big of a deal to me. However, throughout their days in the swamp both Andy and Sarah learn how to survive and how to trust each other. Very entertaining and engaging read.

2013-14 Missouri Truman Award nominee.

Good action/adventure survival story with plausible raison d'etre. The female protagonist shows lots of growth throughout the novel. Light romance adds to the tension. A teeny tiny bit draggy in a couple of parts but overall entertaining and thought provoking. I was surprised and a little perplexed to discover something about Sarah, the main character at the end of the book, which I won't give away, but that seemed a bit unnecessary to me as if it was thrown in for a shock factor. I was confused and thought that I had obviously missed something early in the early chapters. The author has some interesting comments about this on her website but I find that I don't necessarily agree with her assumptions about readers. At any rate, it would make for an interesting class discussion. Also, the author very cleverly plants a character from her first book in this book who makes a brief cameo towards the end of the novel.

http://www.ginnyrorby.com/Ginny_Rorby/Lost_in_the_River_of_Grass___Spoiler_Alert.html

Did a remarkable job of creating a character I hated, forced her to endure and develop some redeeming qualities...

First read it 10 Sept. 2014 when I was a para - read it again 30 Oct. 2016 when I assigned it in my 6th grade classroom.

Quick, heart pumping read. Very well done adventure survival story about a girl who gets stranded in the Everglades with a boy she just met. They have to walk out, on their own, with minimal food and water supply. The 14 year old girl's voice was believable and not one extreme (super angsty teenagery) or the other (emotionless, hard). She rang true to me and I enjoyed her perspective.

A great story about survival and adventure. I particularly enjoyed that it takes place in The Everglades, even more so, in an area of this National park that I frequent. Although not a horror book, the idea of being lost in the Everglades is terrifying. A beautiful, serene place but highly dangerous.