Ava Bigtree's mother was a top flight alligator wrestler in the Ten Thousand Islands off the coast of Florida. Her death from cancer puts the family into serious financial and emotional straights. Ava's grandfather is packed off to assisted care, and her father is grieving and absent. Her older brother Kiwi abandons the failing family business to work at a mainland amusement park and earn enough to keep them afloat. Her sister Osceola, obsessed with the dying and the dead, ends up running away from home to chase and "marry" a ghost.
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Worried for her sister's safety, and alone in the lushly described, almost alien world of the Ten Thousand Islands, Ava hires the Bird Man, a peripatetic loner who earns his money driving birds off of people's property, to guide her through the swamp and find her sister. The magical realist tone of the book kicks up a notch after they set off. Is the Bird Man showing Ava the underworld her sister's been talking about? Are they still in the world we know? In a brutal coming-of-age sequence, Ava realizes the Bird Man is spiritual guide, but just an ordinary man taking advantage of her. She manages to escape and hide in an alligator cave, but has to wrestle one of the creatures to get free.
Eventually, all three siblings are reunited with their father. At the close of the book, they realize they have to abandon the place that has always been their home and enter "the real world" of the mainland.
Best part of story, including ending:
The delicate balance Russell strikes between thirteen-year-old Ava's childlike perspective and her wise-beyond-her-years descriptions of the world around her is really impressive
Best scene in story:
Ava's triumph over the alligator at the end is both a satisfying physical victory after all the terror she's gone through and bittersweet emotional closure for her grief for her mother
Opinion about the main character:
She's amazingly self-sufficient for her age, and her love for her siblings and her home is touching
