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Nov 06, 2008

Alexandra rated it:

This is probably more of a reflection than a"review" I read this book when I first started teaching, and my naive and much younger self wanted to be exactly the kind of teacher Pat Conroy had wanted to be-one who worked with children who needed me and whose lives I could touch in some way-only I would do it better of course! My first teaching job plunked me down in a non-air-conditioned overcrowded school in Little Havana (in the heart of the city of Miami, FL for you non-natives) wi More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2008

Kellie rated it:

I was really impressed with this book. Not only did I enjoy the story, which is true, but I also enjoyed the writing of Pat Conroy. This is the first book I have read by Conroy. This is about the experience Conroy had in the early 70’s teaching in a one room school house on Yamacraw Island (which is the pseudonym for Daufuskie Island), an island off the coast of South Carolina. This island was populated by mostly African Americans. The experience was truly eye opening . It really depicted More...

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Apr 20, 2009

Joanie rated it:

I can't remember if I read this before or after I saw the movie "Conrack" with Jon Voight but they're both great.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 05, 2008

Maureen rated it:

This was the first Pat Conroy book I read, and several years later, I had an opportunity to spend some time on Yamacraw, the island where he taught school. It was a magical place, with sandy roads shaded by great oak trees dripping with spanish moss. The people lived in backwards conditions, but they were tied to the land and their relationship with the land and the ocean in a way that few if any of the rest of us will ever experience. This is an inspiring, uplifting book and I am a better p More...

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Dec 04, 2011

Cindy rated it:

28. [The Water is Wide] by [[Pat Conroy]] [return][return][The Water is Wide] by [[Pat Conroy]] is the true story of his year teaching on Yamacraw Island off the coast of South Carolina. The children Conroy taught were pushed aside and all but forgotten by the state educational system. The children knew little to nothing of the world outside of their poverty stricken island home. [return][return][The Water is Wide] is an emotional book, hilarious on one page, sad on the next. [[Pat Conroy]] More...

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Jan 04, 2009

bookczuk rated it:

I had gotten a copy of this book a while back for a few reasons:
1. It takes place in SC
2. Pat Conroy is a SC writer
3. I like some of his stuff, despite his lunatic family
4. I had fond memories of the movie
5. One of my favorite folk songs is "The Water is Wide".
6. A friend of mine is mentioned in the afterword.

I saw the movie made from this book when I was a teenager, a few years before my family moved to South CArolina. It made a bi More...

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Nov 18, 2011

Jacob rated it:

You can't judge a book by it's cover, right? As a kid in the 80's I saw the cover layout of Pat Conroy books at the beach and on airplanes - the serious Miami Vice font and 'realistic' 80's drawings of scenes, and knew he wasn't anywhere near as cool as Jay McInerney.

Mom was moving recently and as I pulled a few books off her shelves she said, "You should read some Pay Conroy, you'd like him." I was just tired (buzzed) enough to not disagree and accepted The Water is Wide More...

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Feb 26, 2011

Chuck rated it:

In this autobiographical account, Pat Conroy deftly chronicles his year as a primary school teacher on Yamacraw Island off the coast of South Carolina. Confronted with obstacles ranging from appallingly illiterate students and initially suspicious parents, to obstreperous colleagues, self-satisfied administrators, and the usual school politics, Conroy nevertheless managed to introduce his young pupils to a world beyond Yamacraw. Although their mastery of fundamental skills improved only margin More...

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Feb 09, 2011

Julie rated it:

Pat Conroy grew up in a South Carolina town where segregation was the norm. After graduating from an all-white high school, Pat went to The Citadel to study. He became a teacher in South Carolina. In 1968, when his idea to join the Peace Corps didn't pan out, he decided to take on a unique challenge. He became a teacher on an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina.

In The Water is Wide, Conroy tells the story of his year teaching on the impoverished Yamacraw Island (for some re More...

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Jan 29, 2011

Star rated it:

I think I first fell in love with Pat Conroy after reading this particular book. As a native South Carolinian, I thought I understood it fully the first time I read it. I thought his experience was something that was in the distant past and something that would never touch me or the students I would teach. ( I read this book about 20 years ago the first time.)

Then, we moved to a different part of the state and the teaching position there--well, it was more like working on a mis More...

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Dec 29, 2010

Dr. Lin rated it:

This is my favorite Pat Conroy book. The book was made into a movie later called Conrack - which was also good - although the book was better. Many of the experiences in this book are pat's own - from teaching underprivileged children in a one-room schoolhouse on Daufuskie Island and for being fired for his unconventional teaching practices. Pat paints a poignant picture of the changing landscape for blacks in the 40s-60s - and of the changes going on in the nation about how children learn an More...

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Dec 27, 2009

Rick rated it:

Conroy, a successful novelist, spent a year teaching on an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina. The year was the 1969-70 school year and the island populated by highly disadvantaged sea islanders, mostly African-American with a handful of custodial whites who run the island and its limited services. Conroy, in his young twenties, a relatively recent graduate from The Citadel, had taught high school on the mainland for a couple of years. He is shocked by the impact of the historical m More...

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Aug 24, 2009

Sidna rated it:

What can I say? I LOVE Pat Conroy's writing! In My Losing Season the way he describes a basketball game is pure poetry. While I was hanging about the local bookseller (as opposed to a book store) waiting for Conroy to write another book, I realized I had never read The Water is Wide. I don't know how I missed a Conroy book. I bought a copy and devoured it as soon as I got home! After having read all his other books and knowing his family history, it was an interesting read. He wrote this book be More...

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Jul 15, 2009

Rhonda rated it:

I didn't much care for this book when I read it, not because the unorthodox spirit of teaching was so rampant, but because I didn't think it provided functional answers to the education problem. On the other hand, the creative and unorthodox manner of teaching, that's hard to dislike and I wish we had more teachers who thought this way and could teach in a more unstructured way.
I read this book thoroughly angry with the school superintendent and the whole town for that matter. I demanded More...

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Apr 11, 2009

Julianne rated it:

This is a book about a white male teacher assigned to teach eighteen black children on a remote island of South Carolina in 1969-70. It is about poverty, ignorance, fear, tradition, segregation, and a great lack of hope. Which all creates a great lack of vision on the part of all the black characters.

Because I am a teacher, I was fascinated by the characters -- Conroy, Mrs. Brown, the children, their parents. Becaue I am just younger than him, I could relate to his optimism and More...

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Aug 10, 2010

Laura rated it:

The prose of Conroy's autobio is embracing me as do all his novels. I find myself smiling with each turn-of-the-page for any number of witty turn-of-phrases. One prime example of why I love reading Conroy appears on page 14, as he describes one of his dearest friends (who happened to be a Jew), and the reasons why their personalities clicked in the late-sixties, "We were inseparable from the beginning. We agreed with each other that Vietnam was intolerable, that the South had shit on the he More...

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Nov 14, 2010

Tenille rated it:

My wonderful friend Penny is working on her mid-management degree, and a professor assigned this book for a project. She suggested I read it, and I am so glad I did! Pat Conroy is a remarkable author, and after finishing the book I have a new respect for the educators who lived through the desegregation of the South. The kids of Yamacraw Island were blessed to have this man as a teacher for a short period during a disturbing part of American history. The effects of background knowledge on learni More...

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Apr 22, 2009

Mike rated it:

Pat Conroy undertake a virtual overseas mission when he agreed to teach on a SC barrier island. He arrived to find near squalor, poor hygiene, and the kids didn't even know the name of the ocean surrounding their closed world. He kept me engaged, there were humorous and touching anecdotes by the dozens. That he is virtually alone in his energetic effort to wipe out ingnorance among his pupils is clear. What bothered me most (and I found an Amazon reviewer who agrees so maybe I'm not nuts), is th More...

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Dec 01, 2011

David rated it:

I am definitely a fan of Pat Conroy's writing, especially the two works of fiction I've previously read. I had mixed feelings throughout this one. First, this is a younger Conroy, one who was a few years away from "The Great Santini" and several years from the magnificent "The Lords of Discipline." The author also has a tough time keeping himself from being first billed in a story that really should be about the island and children he taught for a year. This is more of a More...

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Sep 24, 2011

Ruth rated it:

Conroy is an incredible writer and this memoir of his early teaching experience with a group of children on a remote island off the coast of South Carolina proved his skill early on his writing career. As a novice teacher, Conroy did not have a knowledge base of activities that are successful with older children who are so far behind that they don't even know the alphabet, but he did learn how to connect with them in quite unique ways, with a strong desire and drive to bring them into the 21st c More...

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Jan 29, 2009

Holli rated it:

On my own, I would never have picked up this book, but my book group selected it for our February 2009 read and so my journey with Pat Conroy began. This memoir documents Conroy's year of teaching grades 6-12 on Yamacraw Island, off the coast of SC, in the 1960s. Conroy's 18 students were a sad case; many of them were illiterate, couldn't write their own names, couldn't count to five, and were being pushed through an educational system by administrators who pushed them under the rug.

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Jun 19, 2010

Leslie rated it:

Pat Conroy has humor and insight that he can direct anywhere--even at himself. He is uncompromising, and must pick fights and expose what he sees as injustice, believing that the exposure itself is a way of trumping the power of the people perpetuating the injustice by the condemnation of a greater society. At least, so it seems to me after reading "The Lords of Discipline" and "The Water is Wide."

I hope my sister reads this one day. I would love to hear her th More...

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Jul 31, 2011

Andrew rated it:

My dad sent me a copy of this book in the depths of the school year and I was reluctant to read a memoir about teaching impoverished kids for fear it would just be reliving some of the past nine months. Instead, I got lost in the rolicing lyricism of Conroy's first book. Consider me an illiterate southerner, as it was also my first time reading anything of his longer than an essay. The book isn't really about teaching; it's about Conroy becoming a member of the Yamacraw Island community and refl More...

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Apr 28, 2011

stormhawk rated it:

I read books like a shark swims … I keep moving, devour them, move on. Rarely I come across books that I reread, and fewer that I reread more than once. The Water is Wide is one of those re-readable books. I first encountered Pat Conroy's book when I was in junior high, and have returned to it again and again. Finding that it's been re-released, hopefully to gather a new audience, is encouraging to me. The book, written when the world, especially the South, was grappling with changes spurred by More...

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Dec 29, 2010

Matt rated it:

Pat Conroy is passionate about teaching, but we come to find out it is a lot harder to pass this passion on to illiterate and semi-illiterate children. He did a superb job trying to come up with creative ways to reach his students. The cultural differences between the teacher and the students of Yamacraw island was significant. Conroy couldn't understand their relationship with nature and especially with animals. Through all of their differences he struggled as best he could to find a way to More...

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Feb 08, 2011

Amy L. rated it:

Note: Free review copy received from NetGalley.

This is an amazing memoir about the struggles of a middle class white teacher trying to change the world through his teaching. Little does he realize how neglected these children are. Instead of trying to play catch up for seven grades worth of neglect, Conroy tries to equip them with enough knowledge of the world around them, their own sense of worth, and enough education to get by. While this may sound somewhat defeatist, Conroy unders More...

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May 11, 2009

Lisa rated it:

Pat Conroy's memoir of his year spent teaching on Yamacraw Island off the coast of South Carolina in the late 1960's is fascinating. This young, white teacher travels each day to teach elementary students at an all black school on this impoverished island. Despite an uninspired principal who beats children in order to maintain order and does everything "by the book" and a hostile central administration, Conroy works hard to expand the horizons of his students and to teach them to res More...

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Nov 17, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

I reread this book since some of my students chose to read it (it had been a while), and I was reminded again of why I love Conroy. It's not as strong as some of his other novels (I particularly miss the diction of The Prince of Tides), but I really enjoyed the reread.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 09, 2010

Jen rated it:

A memoir of Pat Conroy's year of teaching at a black elementary school on a small island off the South Carolina coast at the time of integration. I would give it 3 1/2 stars if I could -- it was one of those books I couldn't put down for very long and I wound up reading it over about 2 days. As a memoir, yes, I know Conroy is the main character, but I wanted to find out about the kids, their parents, the way of life on the island. He did do an excellent job of evoking the mood of the time, th More...

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Jun 05, 2009

Yvonne added it

I saw the movie based on this book first, when I was a young teen, and was captivated, completely. It held a completely new world for me, and when I got a little older and found it was a book, I read it as soon as I could. It's an angsty read, all of his work is, in my opinion, but it's good angst, the best, it's real angst, not generated falsely for effect, and sometimes you can feel the author fighting it right along with you, only to succumb because the main character is always human and real More...

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