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This thin volume doesn't aspire to the mature complexity of the talented Australian author's The Rider. Though the language is lyrical, Winton pares it down, deliberately simplifying his prose in the service of a clearly articulated call for ecological responsibility. Abel Jackson lives in isolated area of Australia between a national park and the sea, where he helps his mother dive for abalone; his father is dead. When he's 10, he encounters a huge, magnificent blue grouper he names Blueback, a fish legendary for its cleverness and daring. Danger arrives in the form of a vicious fisherman whose predatory methods despoil the bay and put Blueback at risk. Though Abel's mother manages to drive the fisherman away, Abel learns that "there was nothing in nature as cruel and savage as a greedy human being." Over the years, unprincipled developers, pollution and other man-made disasters threaten the bay's pristine beauty before Abel's mother persuades legislators to declare the area a sanctuary. Abel, now a marine biologist, decides to abandon his international career to devote his life to the priceless natural domain where Blueback continues to swim--and to bond with another generation of Jacksons. The book is perhaps more suitable for YA readers than adults, but Winton pulls deftly on the heartstrings as he narrates this quiet tale. Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

In this little fable from the prize-winning Winton (e.g., The Riders, LJ 3/15/95), an environmentalist raised on the Australian coast returns to fight its exploitation--with the help of a giant grouper named Blueback he befriended as a boy.Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Australian writer Winton's luminous fiction has earned him much acclaim, including a Booker Prize nomination for his last novel, The Riders (1995), and his narrative powers are simply resplendent in this tale of the sea, which he calls a "contemporary fable." Abel, 10 when the story begins, lives alone on the Australian coast with his impressively self-sufficient mother. One day, while diving for abalone, they meet a startling creature, an immense blue grouper Abel names Blueback. The spectacular fish turns out to be a playful and loving friend, and they form so profound a bond, Abel dreams of Blueback constantly after he goes away to boarding school. But their coastal paradise is terribly vulnerable, threatened by land-hungry developers, greedy fishermen, and the ravages of pollution. Anxious to protect the place he loves, Abel becomes a marine biologist, a calling that, perversely enough, takes him far from home but no closer to true understanding. A memorable and redemptive fable of our maddening times. (Reviewed February 15, 1998)0684845652Donna Seaman From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.