Book: Journey to the River Sea
Author: Eva Ibbotson
What a wonderful experience to start this year with The Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson! May be I’ve found myself in the book, and I’ve seen myself inside the characters, it’s very moving. I will from time to time share my thoughts on this book, and how this book had spoken to me.
This book is an important read to me for some very personal reasons. I might share about this on another post. This post is a general book review. From the blurb on the back of the book, this book is about Maia, an orphan in London and her journey to the Amazon. After reading the whole book, what touched me most was the friendship of these three orphans Maia, Clovis and Finn. They demonstrated true friendship.
The friendship between Bernard Taverner, Professor Glastonberry and Miss Minton was beautiful too. I guess when Ibbotson wrote Bernard Taverner, she was writing about her late husband, he was also a naturalist.
When I was reading this book, I had fun thinking of what is hell, heaven, paradise, scary place?
Below are two quotes from the book to compare hell and heaven, but there are many more quotes inside the book on this topic.
Quote 1:
“Those who think of the Amazon as a Green Hell,” she read in an old book with a tattered spine, “bring only their own fears and prejudices to this amazing land. For whether a place is a hell or a heaven rests in yourself, and those who go with courage and an open mind may find themselves in Paradise.” (Pg. 7)
Quote 2:
“I’m not scared,” said Maia. And she wasn’t. She’d been scared of the nastiness of the twins and of being shut up in the Carters’ bungalow, but she wasn’t scared of travelling through unknown lands with a boy hardly older than she was herself. She thought perhaps she wouldn’t be scared of anything ever again if she was with Finn. (Pg. 254)
Family Carter with the twins were selfish people. They used Maia to get money, and treated her like an unworthy child even harmed her for no reason. Poor Maia was afraid of what disaster would come next when living with them. But Maia felt safe with Finn, because she can trust him.
I am thinking, if we are making effort to build trust in family, in workplace, and in the society, this world can be a safer place. On the contrary, if everyone is fearing of losing something or missing out something, we are actually building disaster for ourselves. If I have to constantly weigh every action and every word from everyone what is the motive behind it, I think it is very pathetic to live like that. Anyway, to change the world is always begin with changing myself. So the question to myself: Am I a trustworthy person?
I truly think that the world will be a better place, when more children have read this book. It is a fantastic story, humorous, entertaining and with beautiful values.
Another Ibbotson’s book that dear to me is The Secret of Platform 13. Click the link for my book review:
https://thejourney-writing.com/2020/12/platform-13-at-kings-cross-station.html
How this book related to my new year resolution 2023?
https://thejourney-writing.com/2022/12/a-message-for-new-year-2023-from-the-journey-to-the-river-sea-by-eva-ibbotson.html
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