Alligator Crossing

Henry Bunks lives in crowded Miami in the 1950s. A nearby canal -- an entrance to what will become the Florida Everglades -- provides respite from his chaotic life in an uncaring family. Henry meets and befriends an alligator hunter and stows away on his boat. The hunter, an enigmatic character, is at once an outlaw and a father figure to Henry. In the watery wilderness, the man and boy meet a wildlife photographer, a botanist, and a park ranger, and Henry is thrust into a race to save a human life. First published in 1959, this story combines great adventure with a boy's first experience of adults who are neither totally bad nor totally noble. Alligator Crossing is a rediscovered classic by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, known as the "Savior of the Everglades."