Description Growing up in rural, southern Virginia, Hope Whitby planted marigolds in the garden with her mother, canoed the Nottoway River with her father, and waited for the bookmobile on the porch with her sisters Vicky and Kelly. Her debut poetry collection captures with great intimacy and warmth a girlhood immersed in the natural world, and a poet's coming of age. Traveling the River is a book about strong roots, new beginnings, and the timeless redemptive power of art and nature. "Give my words seed," Whitby writes, "and they will take root."