River of teeth

RIVER OF TEETH
Sarah GAILEY

K E Y   F E A T U R E S
Upper YA
Speculative Historical Fiction
Alternative History
​Historical Fantasy
Modern Literature
Novella
LGBTQIA+ Heavy Rep

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T H E   L O W D O W N
This book starts out by exploring what would have happened if the US government had gone ahead with the plan to release hippos into the Mississippi. It follows a rag tag group of 'hoppers' or cowboys as they try to remove the hippos from a flooded section of the river. It has action and drama as well as some really interesting characters all crammed into a short novella.

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L E A R N I N G   O P O R T U N I T I E S
While this book is definitely primarily a fun read it is a great way to introduce teens to speculative historical fiction, you could easily expand upon this by finding an event or idea from history and asking the 'what if' questions.

Using this as a starting point to have your child create a fully fleshed out character, think about their background, their quirks and their motive. The characters in this book each provide a full range of these themes for you to compare and contrast.

And finally obviously hippos! You can learn about the way hippos live in the wild, as well as study the impact of hippos as an invasive species (Columbia for example), try discussing what the impact of releasing hippos into your local environments would be, the effect on the eco systems. Perhaps expand on this by researching what invasive species are found in your local area and what impact this has had on the environment or native wildlife populations.