The play offers a glimpse of life in and around the river and the conflicting hopes and dreams of the fish, amphibians, worms and dragonflies who make it their home. Only the amphibians (a natterjack toad and a great crested newt) are entirely happy with things as they are but sadly their very presence offends one of the fish (Aunt Charlotte) who feels that they lower the tone of the river. Shes the bane of Uncle Percys life very much a live-and-let-live kind of fish. Alvin, their nephew, is a smolt or young salmon. As hes about to follow his absent parents downstream and away across the ocean, he has a built-in wanderlust, which here expresses itself in his desire to find out what lifes like on land. The amphibians (Isaac the newt in particular a great scientist) set out to help him achieve his goal to Aunt Charlottes horror. Glory, the dragonfly nymph, also dreams of life on land, but doesnt feel cut out for it. Finally on land the worms look at the river and resent the fact that, while theyre cramped and over-crowded on land, the river is virtually empty. Their race memory tells them they first lived in the water but somewhere down the line they took a wrong turn and now it may just be that the river is a reminder of a worm paradise lost until human intervention changes everything.

 

 

This book has been graded for interest at 5-7 years.

There are 144 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2021 by Troubador Publishing .