Review of Sylvia Doe and the 100-Year Flood, by Robert Beatty

Sylvia Doe and the 100-Year Flood

by Robert Beatty

Disney Hyperion, October 8, 2024. 314 pages.
Review written June 26, 2024, from an Advance Reader Copy sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

Sylvia Doe and the 100-Year Flood is about a girl who’s grown up in an institution that insists it’s not an orphanage. Kids are supposed to get placed in homes, but every time Sylvia gets placed somewhere, she runs away to come back. She loves the horses there and helps the stable manager care for them.

And when a 100-year flood hits – the horses need help getting to the higher pasture. Sylvia and her own horse Kitty Hawk work heroically to save them. But along the way, Sylvia also saves a boy – a boy who says strange things. And they see impossible animals coming down the river – like a jaguar mother with her cub.

It becomes an adventure of figuring out what’s going on with the river, where these out-of-place people and things are coming from, and how to make things right – including with Sylvia herself.

It’s all told in an engaging way, with characters it’s a delight to spend time with. I loved Sylvia’s love for the natural world and the pictures from her notebook as she draws the animals she sees, even the ones that are out of place. This is an adventure story firmly set in the natural world – with a speculative fiction twist.

RobertBeattyBooks.com
DisneyBooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/sylvia_doe_and_the_100_year_flood.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *