Title: Letting Swift River Go
Description: Letting Swift River Go is a bittersweet story of the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir, located in central Massachusetts, between 1927 and 1946  Yolen employs a poetic narration of Sally’s voice as she recollects the realities of living near the flooding of the swift-river towns and the disappointment of leaving the tranquil rural community  Sally’s family is forced to move, rowing along the reservoir to safety. As Sally remembers her childhood, she remembers with fondness her town before the flood  She recalls as well, with sadness, the dismantling of the town, its history and identity—forcing families and friends to relocate  The luminous illustrations evoke a sense of time and place  The double-page spreads of pictorial vignettes will help readers visualize the devastation of a town and to empathize with those who lost their homes  The last scene illustrates the narrator (Sally) and her father revisiting the reservoir, pointing out underwater landmarks, and finally looking “down into the darkening deep and letting them go,” referring to the collective memories of their beloved town.
Subjects: Juvenile fiction, Fiction, Country life, Change, Swift River (Mass.), Children's fiction, Adventure and adventurers, fiction, Massachusetts, fiction, Country life, fiction, Rivers, fiction
Places: Massachusetts, Swift River (Mass.)
People: The story of Sally and her family recollects the realities of living near the flooding of the swift-river towns and the disappointment of leaving the tranquil rural community
Time periods: Quabbin Reservoir, located in central Massachusetts, between 1927 and 1946.