Navigating Early: Summary and book reviews of Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool, plus links to an excerpt from Navigating Early and a biography of Clare Vanderpool.
Navigating Early
by Clare Vanderpool
Hardcover: Jan 2013,
320 pages.
At the end of World War II, Jack Baker, a landlocked Kansas boy, is suddenly uprooted after his mother's death and placed in a boy's boarding school in Maine. There, Jack encounters Early Auden, the strangest of boys, who reads the number pi as a story and collects clippings about the sightings of a great black bear in the nearby mountains.
Newcomer Jack feels lost yet can't help being drawn to Early, who won't 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 never returned from the war. When the boys find themselves unexpectedly alone at school, they embark on a quest on the Appalachian Trail in search of the great black bear. But what they are searching for is sometimes different from what they find. They will meet truly strange characters, each of whom figures into the pi story Early weaves as they travel, while discovering things they never realized about themselves and others in their lives.
Readers who choose to follow Jack and Early on their quest will find surprise, a light shined on dark secrets, and many unexpected and accidental treasures along the way. They will leave Navigating Early with inner riches to guide them on their own quests, whatever and wherever they might be. (Reviewed by Sharry Wright).
The Wall Street Journal
An emotionally believable and moving work of magical realism.
The New York Times
The hallmark of Navigating Early is abundant adventure...The friendship between Jackie and Early and the Morton Hill Academy episodes overall have the flavor of Wes Anderson's delightful summer camp movie, Moonrise Kingdom.
The Washington Post
Clare Vanderpool deftly rows this complex, inventive novel — her most recent since her Newbery-winning Moon Over Manifest'— to a tender, surprising and wholly satisfying ending.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This multilayered, intricately plotted story has a kaleidoscopic effect, blurring the lines between reality and imagination, coincidence and fate.
Booklist
Starred Review. Newbery Medal-winning author Vanderpool's sharp, honest narrative, sparkling with the stars of the night sky, pieces together an elaborate, layered plot with precision, weaving multiple threads into a careful, tidy conclusion perfectly suited for those, like Jack and Early, who want to believe.
Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. Navigating this stunning novel requires thought and concentration, but it's well worth the effort. Ages 10-14.
Since the beginning of time, people have been looking up at the stars, connecting the fiery dots and telling stories about the images they create in the sky. Even in modern times, we are taught to see the man with a belt and a sword, the regal chair, a big dipper and a little one; once you've located at least an approximate location, Orion, Cassiopeia's Chair, the Big and Little Dipper, are fairly easy to identify, although it takes practice and real imagination to see a dragon, a swan, a crab, an archer or the many other constellations.
The Big Dipper is most likely the most famous and easily recognizable. Officially, the Big Dipper is not a constellation but rather part of the constellation known as Ursa Major, which means Big Bear in Latin. Often though the Big Dipper and Ursa Major are referred...
When two boys come to spend the summer at Bird Lake, each is reeling from his own personal tragedy. Both boys arrive scarred and fragile, but as they become friends, the sharp edges of their lives smooth out and, slowly, they are able to start to heal.
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(1326 words).
The Big Dipper is most likely the most famous and easily recognizable. Officially, the Big Dipper is not a constellation but rather part of the constellation known as Ursa Major, which means Big Bear in Latin. Often though the Big Dipper and Ursa Major are referred...
