The Water Is Wide: A Journey of Self-Discovery Through Memoir

Bree: Beautifully written, you feel you are right in the classroom and have a peak into the children’s lives on the island.

United States on Nov 05, 2023

Elizabeth E: Conroy was a fabulous writer. This was an easy read that hit several emotions. I highly recommend it to one and all

United States on Oct 20, 2023

Larrynaz: I read this book as a member of a book club. It hit home with me in so many ways because I,at the age of 22 was out in a similar teaching position with no training for what I was about to experience.

United States on Oct 12, 2023

Martha: see headline above

United States on Oct 06, 2023

Elizabeth Vietta Wocks: Loved Pat's revelation of the school life of these black natives and the neglect they endured.

Canada on Apr 06, 2023

Ingrid Koppi: Conroy berichtet von seiner Zeit als Lehrer an einer gottverlassenen Inselschule. Mit viel Gefühl, allerhand listigen Tricks sowie Unterstützung einiger Kollegen vom "Land" mischt er die bestehende Struktur gewaltig auf und verschafft seinen Schülern einzigartige Erlebnisse. Wunderbare Sprache.

Germany on Dec 14, 2022

Carl Fine: Having visited the region numerous times it was informative to learn more about the black experience especially on a remote island

Canada on Jul 26, 2022

Linda: “I could not see how black children living in the latter half of the twentieth century could fail to know Sidney Poitier, Wilt Chamberlain, or Willie Mays. … They had never been to a movie theater or to a ball game. They had never heard of democracy, governors or senators, capitals of states, or any oceans, or famous actors or artists, or newspapers, or kinds of automobiles. They had never … read a piece of good literature, never ridden a city bus, never taken a trip, never seen a hill, never seen a swift stream, never seen a superhighway, never learned to swim, and never done a thousand things that children of a similar age took for granted.” —Pat Conroy, The Water Is Wide

The Water Is Wide, by Pat Conroy, originally published in 1972 and a New York Times bestseller, is a brilliantly written inspiring memoir of the author’s teaching experiences on a impoverished, isolated South Carolina Island in 1969. Out of Conroy’s 18 students, at least half of them were incapable of expressing even the simplest thought on paper, while three-quarters of his students could barely spell even the most elementary words. Three of the children could not write their names, two...

United States on Sep 20, 2021

Miss Ellie: I want to read this book again. It's one of my all-time favourites, but my kindle has marked it 'read' and I can't access it any more. Is it true you can only read a book once if you've bought it for kindle? This was a great story, fast paced, interesting and so true to life with no washing over touchy topics. I would have bought hard copy if I had realized it would be locked up and I could not reread it.

Canada on Dec 15, 2020

Haro Strait: I had not read anything by Pat Conroy before so I came to this book uninitiated in his genre. The book is a fictionalized account of his time spent as a young teacher in the late 1960s on a small island off the Carolinas. Born and raised in the US south, he admits to many of the prejudices of the region when it came to black people. (He admits to 'watermeloning' when he was in high school - a pack of white kids driving along in a car throwing watermelons at blacks walking along the road.) But he begins to overcome these prejudices and champions the young black kids he has been sent to teach. His accounts of his battles with school boards, with the black female principal of the school, with some of the other residents of the island (black and white) and even with the weather are descriptive, illuminating and often funny. I would describe the story as merely historical if it weren't for current events - which makes this 50 year old tale unfortunately still relevant.

Canada on Sep 06, 2017