@article{436771,
      recid = {436771},
      author = {Russell, Karen,},
      title = {Swamplandia! /},
      publisher = {Alfred A. Knopf,},
      address = {New York :},
      pages = {315 p. ;},
      year = {2011},
      note = {"This is a Borzoi book"--T.p. verso.},
      abstract = {Twelve year old Ava must travel into the Underworld part  of the swamp in order to save her family's dynasty of  Bigtree alligator wrestling.  This novel takes us to the  swamps of the Florida Everglades, and introduces us to Ava  Bigtree, an unforgettable young heroine.  The Bigtree  alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline, and  Swamplandia!, their island home and gator wrestling theme  park, formerly no. 1 in the region, is swiftly being  encroached upon by a fearsome and sophisticated competitor  called the World of Darkness. Ava's mother, the park's  indomitable headliner, has just died; her sister, Ossie,  has fallen in love with a spooky character known as the  Dredgeman, who may or may not be an actual ghost; and her  brilliant big brother, Kiwi, who dreams of becoming a  scholar, has just defected to the World of Darkness in a  last ditch effort to keep their family business from going  under. Ava's father, affectionately known as Chief Bigtree,  is AWOL; and that leaves Ava, a resourceful but terrified  thirteen, to manage ninety eight gators as well as her own  grief.  Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life  animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, the author  has written a novel about a family's struggle to stay  afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/436771},
}