This term our class text will be ‘Journey to the River Sea’ by Eva Ibbotson. It is 1910. Orphaned when her parents die in a train crash, Maia is given the opportunity to join her distant relatives who run a rubber plant in Brazil. Accompanied by her governess, Miss Minton, who has her own reasons for making the journey, Maia finds her new family life in South America is not quite as she expected. It is not long before she is drawn into high adventure deep in the Amazon. The winner of the Smarties Book Prize Gold Award and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, Journey to the River Sea is an exciting adventure story with themes of family and class, each individual’s responsibility for their own actions, the importance of embracing new experiences and of choosing your own outlook on life. If you or your child are interested, here is a list of related or contrasting texts that they may wish to read: .’The Star of Kazan’ and ‘The Dragonfly Pool’, both by Eva Ibbotson. Two further adventure stories from the author of Journey to the River Sea. Anthony Horowitz’s ‘Stormbreaker’ has many similarities in terms of its plot of a young person thrown into a new world by circumstances outside their control. The two narratives are similarly character-driven (while ‘Journey to the River Sea’ has a strong female protagonist, ‘Stormbreaker’ has a strong male lead), and both are gripping adventure stories. For another book with a strong female protagonist, ‘Dead Man’s Cove’ and ‘Kidnap in the Caribbean’, both by Lauren St John, are strong adventure stories, in a contemporary setting. ‘The story of Little Lord Fauntleroy’, by Frances Hodgeson Burnett (1886) is mentioned in the text, and your child may be interested to read this for its thematic links to ‘Journey to the River Sea’. Kind regards, Mr M Stanley (Class teacher and English leader) .