Journey to the River Sea
Sent in 1910 to live with distant relatives who own a rubber plantation  along the Amazon River, English orphan Maia is excited. She believes she is in  for brightly colored macaws, enormous butterflies, and "curtains of sweetly  scented orchids trailing from the trees." Her British classmates warn her of  man-eating alligators and wild, murderous Indians. Unfortunately, no one  cautions Maia about her nasty, xenophobic cousins, who douse the house in bug  spray and forbid her from venturing beyond their coiffed compound. Maia,  however, is resourceful enough to find herself smack in the middle of more  excitement than she ever imagined, from a mysterious "Indian" with an  inheritance, to an itinerant actor dreading his impending adolescence, to a  remarkable journey down the Amazon in search of the legendary giant sloth.Eva Ibbotson, author ofDial-A- Ghost,Island of the  Aunts, and other positively delightful and droll fantasies, won a Gold  Award for this book in the 2001 Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes. Likable  heroines, loathsome villains, and splendid adventures—-along with Kevin Hawkes's  appealing ink illustrations--make Ibbotson's novels a must for every bookshelf.  (Ages 9 and older)--Emilie Coulter--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.