Into the Ravine (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Into the Ravine Karen Coats Scrimger, Richard Into the Ravine. Tundra, 2007260p Paper ed. ISBN 978-0-88776-822-4$9.95 R Gr. 6-9 After a storm knocks down some poplars near their fort, three thirteen-year-old boys, Jules, Chris, and Cory, decide there is only one thing to be done: build a raft and float down the creek behind their house into the river. Along the way, they meet with a host of quirky adventures, finally ending up in a tricky situation involving a boa constrictor, some smuggled emeralds, and a South American gangster. Each adventure can be read for its metaphoric significance in the passage from childhood to adulthood, but it's hard to bother with that when the situations themselves are so full of rich comedy. Jules is an incisive and witty narrator, playing with words and fantasies as he manages to tell the story of their raft adventure in the style of a tall tale. Woven into the mythic adventure are subtle commentaries on the state of contemporary life in a Canadian suburb, with the huge disparities between the very rich and very poor, the persistent problems of race, and the tension between wild spaces and urban development and detritus. Scrimger is a master at writing boy; without overt signaling, he pinpoints the anxieties, strengths, preoccupations, and weirdnesses that belong particularly to the kind of creature who floats down the river with his friends on a hot summer day, gets his first kiss, and becomes a hero, all on his way to becoming, if not a man, then at least an older and wiser boy. Copyright © 2007 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois