SWAMPLANDIA! Earns Its Exclamation Points!!

Swamplandia! Swamplandia!  Swamplandia!  This is one of those books that I wanted to talk about and recommend almost as soon as I started reading it.  And then I’d add, “Well, let me finish it first, and then I’ll tell you for sure.”  I think that while I was reading, a part of me thought the book was so amazing that I wasn’t sure a perfect ending—and ending that matched the book—could possibly exist.  But now I’m done, and it’s safe to say, I strongly recommend this book.  It was one of those books that I wanted to sneak in at any possible moment, even if it meant just reading a few pages before slipping off to sleep.  Every page is surprising and a little bit strange, which is just how I like it.

Swamplandia! (and, yes, every time I saw one of those mid-sentence exclamation points, the punctuation nerd in me—the same nerd who remembers being told every writer gets only three exclamations points in her entire life—got a shudder of delight) tells the story of the Bigtree family as they recover from the loss of their mother, wife, and star attraction at Swamplandia!, an alligator-wrestling themed swampland park.  The narration is shared between Ava Bigtree, a thirteen-year-old alligator wrestler who’s determined to follow in her mother’s footsteps and save the park; and her older brother Kiwi, who has his own vision of heroism, one that involves saving the Swamplandia! but also going to college and using lots of big words and learning not to sound like an alien life form to the mainlanders.  Kiwi begins his quest on the Florida mainland, a place as odd and terrifying as the swamplands Ava finds herself negotiating without her parents or siblings: it quickly becomes clear that either place will take the courage of an alligator-wrestler to survive.

This book is wild and wonderful!  Read it!!  You’ll enjoy every exclamation point.  Not a one is undeserved.  (!).