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Summary
Summary
When things go bad at home, sisters Eleanor and Mike hide in a secret place under Eleanor's bed, telling monster stories. Often, it seems those stories and their mother's house magic are all that keep them safe from both busybodies and their dad's temper. But when their father breaks a family heirloom, a glass witch ball, a river suddenly appears beneath the bed, and Eleanor and Mike fall into a world where dreams are born, nightmares struggle to break into the real world, and secrets have big consequences. Full of both adventure and heart, Riverland is a story about the bond between two sisters and how they must make their own magic to protect each other and save the ones they love.
Author Notes
Fran Wilde was born in 1973 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia with a BA in English with Honors, Warren Wilson College with a MFA in poetry, and the University of Baltimore with a Masters in Information Architecture and Interior Design.
Her previous jobs included a sailing instructor, Jewel's assistant, teacher, professor, and web and game developer. She writes for the blog GeekMom and runs the blog and podcast for Cooking the Books.
She writes short stories and novels. Some of her short stories include Bent the Wing, Dark the Cloud, published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, The Ghost Tide Chantey on Tor.com, You are Two Point Three Meters from Your Destination, published in Uncanny, and How to Walk through Historic Graveyards in the Digital Age, published in Asimov's Science Fiction. Her novel Updraft (2015) won the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy (2016). Her other novel is Cloudbound (2016).
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-Eleanor protects her little sister Mike from their parents' violent fights by hiding with her under the bed and telling stories. The two children are made to think that all of the abuse is their fault and that they need to fix things. Under the bed, the kids fall into Riverland, where dreams are grown in the form of reeds, and horse-shaped nightmares made of smoke try to escape and wreak havoc on the real world. The two girls are told by a grouchy heron that they must fix the river in order to leave the dreamland and fix the issues with their parents. This book reinforces the idea that abuse is the child's fault and the onus is on them to be good and not cause trouble or tell any grownups. The characters are all static and don't have much depth. VERDICT A poorly executed version of Lois Lowry's Gossamer, Alice in Wonderland, and the film Sucker Punch mixed together. Not recommended.-Rachel Reinwald, Lake Villa District Library, IL © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Wilde (Updraft) skillfully blurs the lines of fantasy and reality in a haunting middle grade story of sisters connected through trauma and a shared mythology. Middle schooler Eleanor and her little sister, Mary ("Mike"), have long believed in house magic-a force that sweeps away the shards of objects broken in anger and returns the home to a semblance of normal. But one night, a river appears in the girls' bedroom, and both are swallowed into a watery dreamworld of anthropomorphic creatures, including a talking heron, nightmarish equines, and a terrifying snake woman. But as sinister as elements of Riverland are, the world they are most in need of escaping is the one where they should feel the most safe. When the girls' mother, wearing dark glasses to conceal her bruises, takes them to their estranged grandmother's house, the sisters believe that their attentive relative may share their connection to Riverland, as well as the girls' sense of obligation to keep the nightmares from spilling into the waking world. Beneath the surface of Wilde's fantastical, if at times muddied, metaphors lies the far more chilling and profound portrayal of domestic abuse and the lengths to which people can go to deny the most painful of truths. Ages 10-14. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Two sisters who use stories and spells to cope with family dysfunction discover a river-dominated dream world.Twelve-year-old narrator Eleanor reveals that Poppa is a batterer. Momma, his enabler and most frequent victim, replaces what Poppa breaks and rigidly disciplines the girls. Wilde perceptively etches Eleanor's attempts to insulate Mike, 7, within their violent, secretive home, where "house magic" prevails if the girls obey the rules. When a mysterious river infiltrates their under-the-bed hideout, the girls enter a world with a caretaker Heron, nightmare horses, leak-patching crabs, and more. Anassa, a snake-headed monster working to breach the boundary between worlds with the mares, exploits Eleanor's anxieties. Leaks appear in the sisters' and neighbors' homes, mirroring Anassa's fractious progress. The sisters' back-and-forth questing to reconcile both worlds by replacing Momma's old glass fishing floata "witch ball" broken by Poppavividly culminates during a storm, in which netherworld birds help the girls fight back invading Anassa. The real-world plottingincluding a tentative new relationship with their mother's mother and Eleanor's growing friendship with neighbor Pendrais finely wrought. The allegorical fantasy elements, while propulsive, lack a strong controlling logic and require considerable credulity from readers, as Eleanor uncannily navigates the river world's inchoate dangers. The sisters are assumed white, while Pendra is described as brown and is probably of South Asian descent.The important topic of physical and emotional abuse in families is sensitively portrayed; the intertwined fantasy is at times a distraction. (Fantasy. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Sisters Eleanor and Mike are sworn to secrecy about what goes on in their house; it's the most important of their family's many rules. If they are good, house magic will protect them. But house magic which sweeps up the shattered glass and puts cookies out after their parents have a big fight isn't enough when something that can't be replaced or repaired gets broken: the witch ball, a mysterious family heirloom. As the boundary between the real world and a magical dream world begins to erode, Eleanor and Mike must confront the hurt and anger within themselves if they are to find a way to fix things and to keep the deceiving voice of guilt and shame from breaking free and destroying everything. Along their quest, the sisters learn from the inhabitants of Riverland, including a pony made of dishrags and a heron made of metal, about the power of telling and embracing the truth. A narrative that challenges the stereotypical stories of domestic violence, this is painful and heartwarming all at once in its portrayal of two sisters creating their own magic and protecting one another. The latest from award-winning Wilde is a must-read for upper-middle-graders looking not just for a magical quest but also for lyrical writing and a beautiful story, too.--Eleanor Roth Copyright 2019 Booklist
