Journey to the River Sea

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We learn of a plot back in England, try to evade some detectives, narrowly escape with our lives and - simply put - have a wonderful time. There was a little romance, action and lots of adventure but still suitable for most ages - from 9 to 13. Miss Minton (a stern governess in a Mary Poppins sort of way) might almost also veer towards caricature if it wasn't for the fact that she has a heart-breaking secret of her own that we hope for her sake will be resolved (the clues are in the text, if we notice). Sadly, not everything is perfect and there are issues with her cousins, but of course as this is a middle grade/ 8-12 novel these issues are tackled well and dealt with.

Bright, passionate, adventurous, determined, and resourceful, Maia has great ambition and a talent for music. Amidst her trying to evade her awful cousins, she is tutored by a wonderful governness, goes to piano and dancing lessons, meets a young actor as well as an old professor, some Russian aristocrats and a seemingly wild boy. Earlier in the century, when empires were still carving out new territories for exploration (corporations do that now) locals were often regarded by Europeans as heathen, dirty, lazy cheats, both primitive and incorrigible. That experience -- of being uprooted -- was drawn on directly for novels like The Morning Gift (about a girl from a secular Jewish family escaping Nazi Germany) and indirectly, I suspect, for Maia, the young protagonist of Journey to the River Sea. This is a children’s book, after all, and I don’t expect the same subtleties that I would in literature written for adults.She also forms remarkably close bonds with both Clovis King and Finn Taverner, who are, if in different ways, in lonely and vulnerable situations similar to her own. This existence could not be more different from Brazil where her aunt and uncle live with their twin girls and where she will shortly be shipped off her with her stern governess.

Professor Neville Glastonbury (The curator of the Manaus Museum) is friends with Bernard Traverner and Finn. At first, this looks like a fairly predictable orphaned-English-girl-gets-shipped-off-to-live-with-distant-relatives story. It so happens they have just hired a new governess for their twin daughters, so Maia and Miss Minton will make the long journey together.

In some ways, this story reminds me of what Burnett does in The Secret Garden: a young girl is taken into a hostile landscape and she brings together a group of people who have all been lonely and isolated.

So it’s all too easy to forget that Journey to the River Sea was actually published at the turn of the twenty-first century. An ideal activity for Key Stage 3 classes who are studying the novel or as a stand-alone comprehension task. I want to watch Clovis on stage at the Manaus Opera House, fan in hand against the stifling, muggy atmosphere. This is quite an enjoyable story, with plenty of adventure, and some intrigue mixed in for good measure.Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson is a historical children’s fiction novel published in 2002. She also gets to know Miss Minton who insists on teaching her some Portuguese to prepare her for living in Brazil.

There were serious issues with the representation in this novel; racism, exoticism, and romanticism.

Afterward, Clovis meets Finn too and Finn suggests that they swap positions by making Clovis take the place of Finn. In fact this really is a Cinderella story, and while Ibbotson never labours the parallels that is the trope we inevitably have in the back of our minds. Maia briefly considers whether they will be like the two Ugly Sisters in Cinderella but then dismisses the thought when she first meets them.