My favorite book as a child was “Journey to the River Sea” by Eva Ibbotson. The story is simple enough (a girl travels to the Amazon to live with cousins after the death of her parents) but for me, it was magical. When Maia, the novel’s main character, arrives in the Amazon, she finds that her cousins are trying to pretend they are still back in England, and they live in a shuttered grey world, closed off from the jungle around them. Maia eventually manages to break free of their restraints and finds a captivating world waiting behind the walls. From the indigenous population to the decadent Russian Counts that live upriver, Maia begins to understand from the people around her how to truly live.
I think it’s important for kids to believe in such magical places – those places where courage and kindness mean everything, and where the very world in front of your eyes is truly magical and exciting. This book still affects me in many ways. I crave travel, not to go to beaches or Disneyland, but to see and understand new cultures and people. I’ve since gone back and re-read the book that I’ve read so many times. Honestly, it’s a little simplistic and definitely written for children. But for me at that young age, those words painted a picture I’ve never forgotten, and from then on I’ve always believed that the world is an extraordinary place, if you only know how to see.
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