Jack loves books. Books, however, are something that is scarce in his 1930s backwoods community, especially since his pa does not approve of reading. Jack daydreams about escaping from his home, riding the river until he discovers a place he could actually belong, but it isn't until the summer of 1940 that he discovers a startling secret that the river holds and decides to launch off an odyssey of his own, an odyssey that will change his life.