ONCE UPON A RIVER by Bonnie Jo Campbell

      ONCE UPON A RIVER is probably the best book I have read recently. To put this in perspective I can often read ten books a week. Yes, a week. So there you have it.
      ONCE UPON A RIVER is a perfectly and poetically rendered tale of 15 year old Margo Crane and her life on the the Stark River in Michigan.
      Margo Crane, a flawed and courageous young girl takes to the river after a series of horrible and violent events unfold around her. Lost and alone she finds comfort and salvation in taking her Grandpa's teak rowboat far away from the life she knows. With her rifle and her wits and her beauty she embarks on a journey that transforms her in so many ways.
     Many readers might find her unlikable in the beginning, as did I, but with continued reading one begins to understand and empathize with her and develop a relationship with Margo that far outstrips any preconceived notions of her
 character. I believe this is  at the heart of what Ms. Campbell is getting to; we don't really know someone until we can understand their life and their decisions and that we should never judge nor condemn anyone until we know their complete story.
        Lyrically, this book sings with every bird that flies overhead, every frog and muskrat and turtle that lives on the river banks. Every fish. every raccoon and every deer are given their voice in this book. Even the puffball mushroom and the fiddlehead ferns are given their due.
        I am not what you would call a "nature girl"; I don't hunt, I don't wander the woods and I only fly fish as an art (to catch and release) and I have never once
 shot a deer. I have never wanted to become that girl, it's not in my DNA. However ONCE UPON A RIVER  made me wish I was more in touch with the natural world, that I could in fact move through rivers and forests and fields and that I could live truly and honestly off the land.
      ONCE UPON A RIVER takes the  reader on an incredible journey; one that it is heartbreakingly brutal  and at the same time, gloriously wonderful and beautiful. Just like a river.