WILD RIVER — Review & Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

“You have to learn to take rejection not as an indication of personal failing but as a wrong address.”
~ Ray Bradbury ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

This is something I think a lot of writers struggle with, especially with today’s climate in publishing, so when I found the post HERE by David King, writing for Writer Unboxed, discussing Writing Across Cultures, I was interested. I hope you find it helpful.

Conflict, conflict, conflict. You can’t have a story without it. HERE C. S. Lakin has an excellent post Exploring Inner and Outer Conflict in Fiction. Her posts are always so good.

Jan Fields at the Institute for Writers and the Institute of Children’s Writers always has interesting things to talk about. HERE she discusses the bane of my existence — revision. I like her view. Revision is the Tortoise, Not the Hare. It’s worth your time.

It’s football playoffs day, so I won’t go on too long. Right now I’m watching my 49ers playing the Detroit Lions. I hope it’s a good game. That’s all I really care about. I’d love to see the Niners in the Super Bowl, but, honestly, it wouldn’t break my heart if Detroit won. They are the only team that has played every year since the Super Bowl began that hasn’t gotten there. And Detroit has a great team and deserves to get there. So no matter what happens, I’ll be pretty happy as long as it’s a good game. The Baltimore/KC game was very exciting and had some amazing plays. I don’t remember ever seeing a quarterback catch his own pass before! And we all got a Swift fix after the game. Aren’t they cute together? And the Kelce brothers. I’d love to know what was said that brought tears to Travis Kelce’s eyes. Maybe there’s a story there.

I’m always on the lookout for good survivor stories. This one is not a new book. It came out in 2021, but I just found it recently. And, boy, howdy, is it a good one! WILD RIVER by Rodman Philbrick (I wonder if that’s his real name!) is just the kind of can’t-put-it-down survivor story I love. I read his book WILDFIRE a few years ago (you can see my review HERE), and it was great too. I hope he writes more like this. He is certainly a prolific author! He writes for both kids and adults. Check out his site. (Just click on his name above.) Here’s a bit about WILD RIVER.

Daniel Redmayne is offered a free trip to Montana through a group called Project Future Leaders. He’s not quite sure why he was picked. He sure doesn’t see himself as a future leader, but he finds himself in a van with two adults and four other kids, two girls and two guys his age, headed into the Montana wilderness for a white water rafting trip. It doesn’t take long for Daniel to discover the other guys in the group are bullies and not very bright ones. The chaperones decide to go on a different river than they had planned, and with no cell service, say they will call it in when they get further down river. But that first night, a dam above them on the river breaks. The chaperones sacrifice themselves to get the five kids to high ground. They have very little with them, and no adults to lead them. They are on their own and no one knows where they are. It just gets better.

Rodman Philbrick is a great writer. He really knows how to build tension and keep it ramped up as he throws more and more obstacles in his characters way. The characters are completely believable, the dialogue is absolutely correct for the characters ages, and the story is so, so compelling. It’s a short book and a quick read. It will really draw in reluctant readers, too, so if you have any of those around, this is a good one. If you haven’t read this one and like survivor stories, I highly recommend it.

I have a used copy for one of you. All you need to do is be a follower (it’s free and easy — see the top, right corner of the post) with a U. S. Address, and leave a comment. If you share the link to this post on social media, please let me know in your comment, and you will get extra chances. And please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.