On the Banks of the Amazon
1872
A transports young readers to the mist-shrouded heights of Quito and the uncharted depths of the Amazon in this 1872 adventure. Harry Faithful, raised amid the volcanic peaks of the Andes in a household woven from Spanish and indigenous threads, possesses the restless curiosity that定义的 the best Victorian adventurers. When his family dispatches him toward England, the journey becomes something far richer than a simple voyage home: it transforms into an expedition through the most exotic wilderness on Earth. Kingston layers his narrative with the meticulous natural history that made Victorian adventure novels so beloved, cataloging strange creatures and stranger customs with the enthusiasm of a 19th-century Darwin. The story moves at a boy's own pace, full of rivers to navigate, friendships to forge, and landscapes so vivid they practically steam in the equatorial heat. This is adventure fiction in its purest form, unapologetically educational and thoroughly exhilarating, for readers who dream of disappearing into jungles where no map has been drawn.
