She arrives in Manaus and immediately falls in love with the exotic fruits, the musical indiginous people, the eccentric theatre built in the town, the greenery and the wildlife. Unfortunately, there is nothing to fall in love with about her relatives. Neither the two adults, nor their horrible twin girls. And they don't actually like Brazil so there is no exploring the region, just going into the garden is frowned upon. I liked this book because, it has loads of imagination put into it. It has loads of description and so much adventure. When Maia goes and discovers a new boy (from Westwood) she tries to get away to an new island.

A book that is almost lyrically beautiful….’Journey To The River Sea’ is choc-a-bloc with exotic plants and animals and ably supported by well-etched characters. Eva Ibbotson had apparently written this book in honour of her late husband who was a naturalist. And she makes a fitting tribute. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that you can effortlessly picture the rainforest in all it’s wild, damp greenery as it unfolds with each chapter. Some of the books, particularly Journey to the River Sea, also reflect Ibbotson's love of nature. Ibbotson wrote this book in honor of her husband (who had died just before she wrote it), a former naturalist. The book had been in her head for years before she actually wrote it. In my initial review, I talked about how the novel was quite flat and very slow-paced. There were serious issues with the representation in this novel; racism, exoticism, and romanticism. I do not feel that the author represented their culture fairly and accurately (due to the problematic content). I vividly remember writing something in my review about the writing being very 'armchair'-esque. It reminded me of the days where Western anthropologists would sit comfortably in their homes writing about people from other cultures, obviously not very fairly and in a very "Othering" manner. I think that I may have also mentioned themes of colonialism and "white saviourism"? I was also certain that the author had little knowledge/experience of the cultures she was harmfully and incorrectly depicting. Not to say that you cannot write outside of your own experience, but this is not how you do it.

I've been thinking a lot about how children's fiction can play a role in the moral development of a child. Ibbotson writes in a variety of genres, but even her most humorous and farcical stories always have a particular moral clarity about them. She reminds me of Dahl in that way. The baddies are lazy, selfish, greedy, grasping -- and usually rich. The goodies are kind, honest, brave, resourceful, modest and hardworking. They yearn for connectedness, not things.

Ibottson began writing with the television drama 'Linda Came Today', in 1965. Ten years later, she published her first novel, The Great Ghost Rescue. Ibbotson has written numerous books including The Secret of Platform 13, Journey to the River Sea, Which Witch?, Island of the Aunts, and Dial-a-Ghost. She won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for Journey to the River Sea, and has been a runner up for many of major awards for British children's literature.There is a foreword and a note from the author at the beginning of my book. The former explains the significance of this author (I had never heard of her before), the latter is she herself telling us what made her write this book.