“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Joe Miller said to my sister.
And she jumped to her feet. It was night. The moon hung high in the night sky, drowning out the stars. I couldn’t see her eyes. Her eyes had disappeared into the blackness that was night. The soft crush of bare feet on baled hay came to my ears and my sister was running; I knew only that she was running.
There in the darkness, Ivy found her way to the top of the teetering stack of hay bales. Joe Miller stood in the darkness and circled his arms around himself, circled them in the air, ranging farther and farther from the circle where we all sat, until his fingers found the thick twine of the rope swing. A single bat of his arm sent it in the direction of the invisible Ivy.
“Got it!”
For the rest of my life, I will hear that moment in my mind. “Got it!” she called, full of momentary delight. Joe Miller sat down — I could tell by the displacement of air — and we waited.
And then there was a swoosh, and my sister was passing above us all, whooping in triumph. Everything that came later would come, but first, there was that moment, that moment of Ivy above us, whirling above us through the darkness, out the paneless window toward the moon, toward the unfathomable reaches of space, and laughing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Julie and Kate, unshakable compadres and first readers. Thanks to Kara LaReau for her astute and insightful editing. Thanks to Mark Engelstad for his articulate explanation of the physiology of brain trauma. Finally, thanks to my Steuben touchstones: the Ankens and the Bretts and, most especially, my parents.
READERS’ GUIDE
1. Describe the town of Sterns. Where is it located? What do you know about the geographic setting of the town?
2. What time of year is it? How do the seasons affect the story as it develops?
3. Why does Rose choose to go to the Sterns Gorge when she meets Jimmy there? Why does she return to the place with the other boys?
4. Compare the Hinckley Reservoir and the town drowned beneath it with the ancient town of Pompeii, which Rose reads about to Ivy. Why are they both so significant to Rose?
5. What is the significance of the night in the haymow when Rose, Ivy, Joe, and Tom were young, the night of the Truth or Dare game? Why does Rose return to the haymow the night that Tom finds her there?
6. Compare the personalities of Rose and Ivy. How are they similar, and how are they different? What does Rose mean when she says, “Ivy didn’t bother with process”?
7. Describe William T.’s character. What is his motivation for taking care of Rose and Ivy? In what specific ways does he help Rose work through her grief?
8. Describe Rose and Ivy’s mother. Why doesn’t she visit Ivy? Why won’t she understand that Ivy can’t get better? What does William T. mean when he says to Rose, “Your mother’s not normal”?
9. In what ways are Rose and Ivy like their mother? In what ways are they each different from her?
10. What does William T. mean when he says, “We all walk around with a stone in our shoe”?
11. Why does Rose change from reading the book on Pompeii to reading the Driver’s Manual to Ivy? What is the significance of this change?
12. William T. says, “All Millers go through crazy.” Why does he say this? Compare Joe and Tom Miller. How are they different, and how are they similar?
13. How is Tom Miller different from Jimmy, Warren, and Todd? Describe the differences between Rose’s interactions with Tom and with the others.
14. Rose says, “Ivy was the Sterns Gorge, rushing and tumbling, dark shallow water in a hurry, and I am the Hinckley Reservoir, contained and still.” How does this metaphor relate to their lives. What other instances of water imagery are there?
15. There are various images of stone in the story. What meanings do each of these images have?
16. Rose tells us that she is fascinated by the idea of sacrifice, by stories of martyrs, but that Ivy didn’t believe in sacrifice. How does the theme of sacrifice relate to different characters in the story?
17. How many references to scientific principles can you find in the story? What significance do these various ideas have for Rose?
18. Look for references to motion and movement in the story. What are some of the ways that the idea of motion tells us something about a person or a feeling?
19. What is the significance of the title of the book?
Adapted from a discussion guide written by Connie C. Rockman, literature consultant, adjunct professor of children’s and young adult literature, and editor of the Eighth Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators and the Ninth Book of Junior Authors and Illustrators (H.W. Wilson, 2000, 2005). For the complete guide, please visit our website at www.candlewick.com.
ALISON MCGHEE is the acclaimed author of several adult novels, including Rainlight, Was It Beautiful?, and Shadow Baby. She is also the author of the middle-grade novel Snap. She says of All Rivers Flow to the Sea, “The ending line from a poem by Louise Erdrich, ‘Sister, there is nothing I would not do,’ sliced its way into my heart when I first read it. A few years after that, my friend G.E. and I were walking along the banks of the Mississippi River. He made the comment that ‘Some people are still water, and others are moving water.’ This book is an alchemy born of those two lines, both of which have haunted me for years.” Alison McGhee lives in Minnesota.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2005 by Alison McGhee
Cover photograph copyright © 2007 by Image 100 Photography/Veer
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2013
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
McGhee, Alison
All rivers flow to the sea / Alison McGhee. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: After a car accident in the Adirondacks leaves her older sister Ivy brain-dead, seventeen-year-old Rose struggles with her grief and guilt as she slowly learns to let her sister go.
ISBN 978-0-7636-2591-7 (hardcover)
[1. Sisters — Fiction. 2. Traffic accidents — Fiction. 3. Love — Fiction. 4. Grief — Fiction. 5. Death — Fiction. 6. Adirondack Mountains (N.Y.) — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M4784675Al 2005
[Fic] — dc22 2004054609
ISBN 978-0-7636-3372-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6408-4 (electronic)
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