It probably isn't a children's book, but this novel by Karen Russell about the teenage members of the Bigtree clan sucked me into its swampy world from the beginning. The story is pretty intense, with a mother dead of cancer, a grandfather suffering from dementia, a largely absent father, increasing financial woes, and of course the regular stresses that come with being a teenager. The's book's setting is mostly split between the family's gator-wrestling venue deep in the South Florida swamplands and the innards of a truly awful mainland Florida amusement park, and the beauty and physical danger of the wilderness stands in stark contrast to the ugliness and moral danger of Floridian suburbia. I won't reveal how the book ends, but it held me in its grasp through the last page.
Through a pleasant twist of fate, mere days after I finished reading Swamplandia! I found out that the author was coming to my college's campus, so I had the chance to attend a reading and question-and-answer period during which Russell read from her most recent publication, a collection of short stories (Vampires in the Lemon Grove). It was fascinating to get to hear Russell read from her other work and talk about her writing process, her inspiration, her own reading list, etc. right after I had finished reading her novel. She explained how Swamplandia! evolved out of a short story she had written, how her own childhood spent in South Florida had influenced her (and how her own experience differed from her writing), and the influence of the swamp itself on her writing. It was really interesting to learn a bit about the production of the novel I'd just read, and her reading from another story--as well as her generally quirky personality--definitely make me want to check out her other work, so watch this space for more Karen Russell.
