Escape to the River Sea

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Night Mayor Franklefink has vanished from the Transylvanian Express - and it's up to you to solve the case! Part of the Solve Your Own Mystery seri... Carroll has created something truly magical and seeming impossible - a book that is both the perfect follow-up to Ibbotson's classic, and yet entirely original. Rich, beautiful and compelling - I read it in one go. Absolutely brilliant. -- Katya Balen I read ‘Escape To The River Sea’ on a whim given that I have not (yet) read ‘Journey To The River Sea’, it came up as an audiobook available from my library and had skipped through a few audiobooks that I just couldn’t get into. This was a welcome relief. The Nazi occupation Vienna finds eleven-year-old Rosa Sweetman separated from her mother and elder sister, and evacuated to the crumbling stately home of Westwood, in the north of England.

Family is important. We all want to belong. Family may not be perfect but it is where we long to be. Escape To The River Sea by Emma Carroll is an exciting children’s historical novel that is guaranteed to entertain all those aged eight years and over. The novel is set at the end of World War II as we follow a young girl who was sent to England from Austria before war started as she was Jewish. Her mother and sister were left behind. Now war is over, and she is looking and waiting for the post with a letter to say her mum and sister survived. The reader can ‘feel’ the tension and disappointment as each day passes with no news. However, she still clings to hope. What an honour Emma Carroll had to continue Eva Ibbotson's legacy, and she ABSOLUTELY did it justice. Since one of the banes of contemporary public debate is the charge of “false equivalence”, often used to dismiss arguments without bothering to refute them, let me make clear that I am not equating Likud and Hamas. However degrading the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, there is freedom and democracy in a Likud-run Israel that would be unknown in a Palestine ruled by Hamas. What I am suggesting is that both Hamas and Likud play to the dangerous fantasy of a single state that caters for the needs and desires of only one group of people living in it.An entertaining, if rather short, sequel to Journey to the River Sea. Emma Carroll hasn’t tried to copy Eva Ibbotson’s style and has made it her own but has still managed to maintain the integrity of the much loved original characters. The only character I wasn’t so sure about was Finn.

Rosa has been sent to England at the beginning of the war as part of the kinder transport. Born to an English mum and Jewish Austrian father, she is hoping that now the war is over she will be reunited with her family. Finn Taverner is the son of Bernard Taverner. Finn is the real heir of Westwood. Sir Aubrey sent the crows to find Finn as he needed the son of Bernard Taverner to inherit Westwood. He was really adventurous and loved to spend time with the nature. He wanted to become a doctor who used many natural medicines and herbal cures. He had two personalities; one was the Indian side and the other was the European side. His main goal was to reach to the Xanti who were his mother's relatives. He was a true and good friend to Maia and Clovis. He had a boat named Arabella, on which he travelled and collected the medicinal plants of which he was so fond. Press Desk: Shortlists for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children's Book Awarded in 2002". The CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards. n.d. Archived from the original on 17 May 2007 . Retrieved 15 June 2009. The winners of The Farshore Reading for Pleasure Teacher Awards 2023, highlighting the work schools are doing to encourage a love of reading, have... It was a finalist for all of the major British children's literary awards ( below), winning the Smarties Prize, ages 9–11, and garnering an unusual commendation as runner-up for the Guardian Award. Anne Fine, British Children's Laureate (2001-3) and one of three former winners on the Guardian panel, wrote that "we all fell on Eva Ibbotson's perfectly judged, brilliantly light to read, civilised Journey To The River Sea, in which we are shown how, as one of the characters Miss Minton reminds us, 'Children must lead big lives... if it is in them to do so. 'Oh, please let her write another book as fine as this, because, in any other year, we would have handed her the prize without a thought." [1] Plot [ edit ]Rosa is a lovely character, strong willed but also with flaws which is what makes her character so realistic and rich, she’s also very likeable. Nicolette Jones, Sunday Times It’s a joy to rediscover ­Ibbotson’s original characters Maia and Finn alongside a new generation in this gripping adventure a b "And the winner is ...: ... a book that lasts. Kevin Crossley-Holland's The Seeing Stone creates a real world whose people you will remember a lifetime, says Anne Fine, introducing our recommendations for young readers". [Anne Fine]. The Guardian 9 October 2001. Retrieved 2012-06-19. Rosa and Yara’s journey across the ocean felt real and cast the change in setting just right. Old character’s appear but have evolved as they would over the course of 30 years while still feeling true to the original. I normally enjoy Emma Carroll’s books but I couldn’t get into this one. I haven’t read Journey to the River Sea so I don’t know whether this would have made a difference but having read this it doesn’t inspire me to read the original.

I think this suffers a bit from being badged as a sequel to Ibbotson's charming book, which meant that I was a little sceptical for about half of it. I was convinced by the end though - it's not quite as delightful as Ibbotson's, with less strongly and beautifully delineated characters, but it has a charm of its own and a rewarding plot. Beautiful and full of adventure, Escape to the River Sea is Emma Carroll's compelling new novel inspired by Eva Ibbotson's bestselling, classic masterpiece, Journey to the River Sea. The heroine of this story is Rosa Sweetman, after the war ended, and seven years after arriving, she was the only child left at Westwood longing to see her family again.Overall, a great action and adventure book twined with historical context and environmental themes. A collection of eighteen romantic short stories that blend great passions with shrewd observations on everyday life. Great Uncle Max is paralysed with indecision between the captivating glove shop assistant Susie and his devoted opera-singing wife, Miss Bennet organises the nativity play at a quiet primary school and makes a miraculous discovery in the search for a baby Jesus, and the lonely dreamer Edwin finds cast-out ballerina Kira on the winter streets of St. Petersburg. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Armistice Day: A Collection of Remembrance - Spark Interest and Educate Children about Historical Moments Clovis (Jimmy Bates, Clovis is his stage name) is an impoverished boy actor who dreams of going home to England. He has a mishap in Manaus and leaves the acting troupe as they fall into debt and are arrested. Later, Clovis takes Finn's place as heir at Westwood in England, convincing detectives of the false identity. He is reunited with his foster mother who persuades him to reveal his true identity. Clovis tries to reveal his identity on several occasions—one of which results in disaster he can "have Maia when she's grown up." He ends the book living as the wealthy heir 'Finn Taverner'. Clovis is kind

All the magic, heart and scope of Ibbotson's classic adventure - I read it in one breathless sitting -- Natasha Farrant, Costa Award-winning author of Voyage of the Sparrowhawk A large portion of the book speaks about colonisation and the destuction of habitats with the impact on both native peoples and the local wildlife.

Set about 30 years after Journey to the River Sea, Maia is now grown up and has an older daughter and boy/girl twin’s of her own. Rosa, this novel’s main character, is an Austrian Jewish evacuee living with the assumed Sir Clovis in England and waiting for her family to come now the war is long over. When Yara, Maia’s elder daughter, turns up Rosa is given the opportunity to travel with her to Brazil and then the adventure begins. When Westwood's driver is sent to collect a foreign lady from the station, Rosa thinks her mother has come for her. From the disappointment of discovering the lady isn't her mother, but a family friend of Sir Clovis comes an adventure that takes Rosa across the ocean and to places beyond her wildest hopes and imagination and to a land where wild pumas roam free. More than that, what should have been a break away from Westwood, turns into a highly dangerous adventure that will surely captivate young readers everywhere. I love finding children’s books with such a complex plot that unfolds steadily the further you read. It was one of those rare period fiction books that feels fully seated in the context and facts of the time in which it was set. The main character is a young girl who at first seems to have a really odd and confusing storyline, but this is something that is used as a jumping off point to talking about the complexities of her past and present. It does impress upon you the awful number of displaced adults and children that war creates and that just disappear, never. to be found again.