Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her familys island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Avas mother, the parks indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness.

As Ava sets out on a mission through the magical swamps to save them all, we are drawn into a lush and bravely imagined debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality.