Book Descriptions
for By the River by Steven Herrick
From The United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY)
Harry Hodby describes his hardscrabble Australian town during the 1950s and 1960s in a series of free-verse vignettes. Ranging in tone from comic to tragic to bitterly realistic, his vivid, precise language evokes the landscape, the seasons, the dangers of fire and flood, and most of all the people made real through action and gesture. In a story line that meanders through this portrait of a town, Harry makes a surprising and poignant discovery about his closest friend. 2007 USBBY Outstanding International Books List, Children’s Books of the Year, Honor Book for Older Readers by Children’s Book Council of Australia; Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature. mac
Bridges to Understanding: Envisioning the World through Children's Books. © USBBY, 2011. Used with permission.
From the Publisher
A memorable YA novel about the tough and tender sides of growing up in a small country town. Fourteen-year-old Harry has a knack for wriggling out of trouble, but escaping the constraints and memories that keep him trapped is not so easy, until it's a matter of life or death.
HONOUR BOOK: CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers, 2005
The big river rolls past our town, takes a slow look and rolls away.
Life for Harry means swimming in Pearce Swamp, eating chunks of watermelon with his brother and his dad, surviving schoolyard battles, and racing through butterflies in Cowpers Paddock. In his town there's Linda, who brings him the sweetest-ever orange cake, and Johnny, whose lightning fists draw blood in a blur, and there's a mystery that Harry needs to solve before he can find a way out
By the River is about the feeling the undercurrents, finding solid ground and knowing when to make a leap.
Steven Herrick writes straight from the heart.
HONOUR BOOK: CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers, 2005
The big river rolls past our town, takes a slow look and rolls away.
Life for Harry means swimming in Pearce Swamp, eating chunks of watermelon with his brother and his dad, surviving schoolyard battles, and racing through butterflies in Cowpers Paddock. In his town there's Linda, who brings him the sweetest-ever orange cake, and Johnny, whose lightning fists draw blood in a blur, and there's a mystery that Harry needs to solve before he can find a way out
By the River is about the feeling the undercurrents, finding solid ground and knowing when to make a leap.
Steven Herrick writes straight from the heart.
Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.
