Swamplandia!
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness. As Ava sets out on a mission through the magical swamps to save them all, we are drawn into a lush and bravely imagined debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
This debut novel Swamplandia! is part coming of age story for the three young protagonists, part adventure story and part satire. The characters in all their glorious eccentricity never take the story away from its underlining reality.
Highly original and inventive storytelling.