by Clare Vanderpool
Flap Copy Description:
After his mother's death at the end of World War II, Jack Baker is suddenly uprooted from his home in Kansas and placed in a boys' boarding school in Maine. There he meets Early Auden, the strangest of boys, who reads the number pi as an unending story and collects clippings about sightings of a black bear in the nearby mountains.
Feeling lost and adrift, Jack can't help being drawn to Early, who refuses to believe what everyone accepts to be the truth about the great Appalachian bear, timber rattlesnakes, and the legendary school hero known as the Fish, who was lost in the war.
When Jack and Early find themselves alone at school, they set out for the Appalachian Trail on a quest for the great black bear. Along the way, they meet some truly strange characters, several of them dangerous, all lost in some way, and each a part of the pi story Early continues to reveal. Jack's ability to be a steadfast friend to Early will be tested as the boys discover things they never knew about themselves and others.
My Thoughts:
Clare Vanderpool is the winner of the 2011 Newbery Medal for her debut novel, Moon over Manifest. In her second book - Navigating Early - Ms. Vanderpool again mesmerizes the reader with her astounding storytelling style. Weaving her 1940's adventure novel with twists and turns that only reveal their significance as this beautiful story comes to a close, the novel definitely has cross over appeal. I would highly recommend Navigating Early to readers from the ages of eight to eighty!
To visit the website of the author, Clare Vanderpool, click here: http://clarevanderpool.com/
