River Journey
"RIVER JOURNEY contains great snapshots of the Great Depression but its true subject is youth. Who but a youthful optimist would see voyaging down the Mississippi on a homemade, rudderless boat not as folly but a terrific adventure? And it is." -- John Hildebrand, author of "Reading the River: A Voyage down the Yukon" and "Mapping the Farm: The Chronicle of a Family""It doesn't matter that [Jonk's] original plan, to navigate the length from one City of the Saints to another, fell short by 1,550 miles. Over the 150 miles he did accomplish . . . he floated into an adventure that allowed him to build a life he could only fancy before. [He] was never the same after his voyage; then he could say with all the others who have traveled boldly, I went, and that has made all the difference." -- from the introduction by William Least Heat-Moon