River Friendly, River Wild

This winter was snowy, this spring brought a terrible blizzard, and now the river is rising. Sandbags don't stop it, the dikes don't stop it, and late one night sirens warn everyone to evacuate. A girl and her family don't expect to be gone more than a couple of days, so they leave their cat and race for shelter with only a suitcase each. But as days stretch into weeks they worry: Is the cat safe? Will they have a home to return to? And how will their lives be changed? In searing, personal poems, Jane Kurtz explores what it's like to struggle through a flood and pull your life together afterward. Inspired by Kurtz's own flood experience, this tale is realistic and unforgettable. Not just a moving story of one girl's courage, River Friendly, River Wildis a tribute to everyone who's ever faced great loss.

Jane Kurtz is a highly acclaimed author of books for young readers. Her picture books include Fire on the Mountain, which was an honor book for the Marion Vannett Ridgeway Award, and Only a Pigeon, which won a Parents' Choice Gold Award and an African Studies Association Award. Her first novel, The Storyteller's Beads, was named one of the best books of 1998 by several reviewers. Kurtz and her family lived in a FEMA mobile home for many months after losing their house in the 1997 Red River flood. They now live in a different house in Grand Forks, North Dakota.