CROSSING THE RIVER: A LIFE IN BRAZIL

Book ID/图书代码： 07633015B77192

English Summary/英文概要： Crossing the River tells a global story through a personal memoir, examining life without the trappings of modern culture, and revealing surprising truths about identity, family, and love. It’s also an account of writer/choreographer Amy Ragsdale’s continuing effort to raise “global children" -- think the anti-Tiger Mom. On an emotional level, it follows the arc of a mid-life mother and a pubescent son struggling in tandem through transition points in their lives while immersed in a language and culture and schools very unlike their own.

Amy, with her two teenaged kids and husband (bestselling writer Peter Stark) arrived in Penedo, a small culturally rich but economically poor town in northeastern Brazil, hoping to find a slower, more nuanced life. They learn to fundamentally connect with their neighbors across language and customs. In the year they spend there, growing close to new neighbors—from the men who cut sugar cane and kill chickens to the clinical university student who became the family’s daily guide to Brazilian life.

Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant and ultimately an argument for immersing Western children in third-world cultures, this isn’t a traditional memoir, nor is it a how-to book, except by example. It bears some resemblance to Eat, Pray, Love in its personal nature and to A Year in Provence in its description of amusing encounters with locals. Kind of like French By Heart: An American Family’s Adventures in La Belle France by Rebecca Ramsey and One Year Off: Leaving it all Behind for a Round-the-World Journey with their Children by David Cohen.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 本书通过个人回忆录的形式讲述了一个全球范围内的故事，抛开各种现代文化的陷阱审视生活本身，同时揭示了有关身份、家庭和爱的惊人事实。这也是作家/编舞者Amy Ragsdale不断努力抚养“全球儿童”的记录。在情感的层面上，本书记录了中年母亲和青春期儿子在进入截然不同的文化、语言、学校环境时艰难的挣扎的努力。

Amy和两个十几岁的孩子跟着丈夫（畅销书作家Peter Stark）来到了巴西东北部的小镇佩内杜，那里文化底蕴深厚，但物质生活匮乏。他们希望过上慢节奏的生活。他们学会了跨越语言和风俗的障碍，与邻居进行基本交流。在那里的一年中，他们和邻居们慢慢变得亲近，包括砍甘蔗和杀鸡的男人，医科大学的学生等，而这些人也成了他们了解巴西生活的日常指南。

本书探讨了西方儿童接触第三世界文化的问题，时而有趣，时而尖刻。这不是一部传统的回忆录，也不是一部指导手册。它在个人层面上与《一辈子做女孩（Eat, Pray, Love）》有些相似，而在对与当地人有趣的接触过程的描写方面又和《普罗旺斯的一年（A Year in Provence）》类似。（LYR）

Awards/获奖情况：“舞蹈家、编舞者Amy Ragsdale和家人一起在巴西乡村度过了冒险的一年，并将期间发生的有关超人妈妈的生活形象生动地记录下来。她的探索过程中，平衡和愉悦占据了主导地位，这也是她希望通过这个敏锐、坦率的故事赠送给读者的礼物。她的旅程对她的读者们来说是一份厚礼。她的精神则成为大家的榜样。”——Annick Smith，作家，著有《Crossing the Plains with Bruno》

First some great quotes/reviews – Ian Frazier and Annick Smith and Kirkus:

"By means of bravery and an extrasensory ability to let what happens happen, Amy Ragsdale and her family left the ordinariness of American life and moved to small-town, rural Brazil, where magical realism is nonfiction walking up the street. The details of this book—eight-foot-long fish whose scales are used as fingernail files, a hotel called Hotel God Gave Me—will rock you, and the story of what the family went through is powerfully moving. An exciting and revelatory book, a delight to read." —Ian Frazier, bestselling author of Travels in Siberia

"Dancer and choreographer Amy Ragsdale set off with her family for a year’s adventure in rural Brazil as an antidote to her overachieving super-mom life. Balance and joy were at the heart of her quest, and balance and joy are her gifts to us in this keen-eyed, candid, transformative story. Her journey is a gift to her readers. Her spirit is a model to follow."—Annick Smith, author of Crossing the Plains with Bruno

“An account of a travel-happy American family bent on a "global" education for the children. A former dance instructor at the University of Montana, Ragsdale takes a frank approach to observing life in Penedo, a colonial hill town in the northeastern Brazilian state of Alagoas, where the family of four serendipitously decided to move from Missoula for a year in 2010 and 2011. Fearless to embrace total immersion when no one, including the two children, knew any Portuguese, the family let the year unfold without trying to enforce a hurried American method to the laid-back, unbuttoned Brazilian way of life. Ragsdale grew up traveling abroad with her diplomat family, from Manila to Cairo, and had already lived with her writer husband, Peter, in places like Ghana, Indonesia, and Mozambique. They were ecstatic to find a cheap house in Penedo to rent and the ability to afford a full-time housekeeper and cook. Catholic school for their son, Skyler, 12, and daughter, Molly, 15, proved a challenge due to the language barrier, and making friends was difficult, especially for Skyler, who felt both criticized by the youth as well as adored by the girls for his blond strangeness. Enjoying little privacy or quiet—Ragsdale writes of having to let go of a Western sense of possession—the family was confronted by their senses of privilege and entitlement in terms of having the money to pay for things that the small-town Brazilians could not afford. In short, anecdotal passages the author recounts the ups and downs of daily life—befriending a series of 20-something guides, navigating the permissive teenage parties for her daughter, taking up capoeira, establishing relationships with the market vendors, and managing the rather bossy, cynical locals—with a pleasant candidness. In the end, she displays a deep gratitude for the eye-opening adventures. A pleasant chronicle of living life outside one’s comfort zone.”—KIRKUS

About the Author/作者介绍： Amy Ragsdale在麦迪逊、威斯康辛、亚洲和北非长大。她在哈佛学院获得了艺术历史学士学位，并在卫斯理大学获得MALS学位。她在多本期刊上发表有关旅行和舞蹈的文章，并拥有自己的专栏。她曾经在西班牙、印尼、马提尼克、莫桑比克、巴西等地教授现代舞。是Headwaters Dance Co.的创始人，曾获得蒙大拿大学的杰出教学奖和2009蒙大拿州州长艺术奖。

Amy Ragsdale was raised in Madison, Wisconsin, Asia, and North Africa. She earned a BA in art history from Harvard College and an MALS from Wesleyan. Her articles on travel and dance have appeared in High Desert Journal, Mamalode, and Outside Magazine Online, where she initiated the column Raising Rippers. Amy has taught contemporary dance in Spain, Indonesia, Martinique, Mozambique, and Brazil. She is the founder of Headwaters Dance Co., the recipient of the University of Montana’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and a 2009 Governor’s Arts Award for the State of Montana.

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Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：US/Canadian rights sold to Seal Press, an imprint of Perseus Books

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