River Boy

Knowing that he is dying, Jess's grandfather insists on returning to the river he had known as a boy to finish a special painting and fulfill a life-long dream.

Tim Bowler was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, in 1953, and lived for many years in a house overlooking the Thames Estuary, where his first novel, Midget, was set. In college, he majored in Swedish and Scandinavian studies, after which he worked in a variety of fields, including forestry and the timber trade. He then went into teaching and became Head of Modern Languages at a school in Devon, England, where he lives. Mr. Bowler is now a full-time freelance writer and translator. In 1995, he started to think about a new book based on the love he felt for his late grandfather, one that would use images of water and swimming as spiritual metaphors. Then one afternoon his wife came home with a painting of a river -- and the next morning he started working on River Boy, which went on to win the 1998 Carnegie Medal.