“Navigating Early,” by Clare Vanderpool.
Delacorte Press, New York, 2013, 306 pages, Grades 6-8.
Life is filled with events that change our direction in life. Usually, the most painful episodes provide the greatest opportunities to grow. Unfortunately, these same occurrences can sometimes overwhelm people. Death is the ultimate challenge that all people face. This event usually brings pain and suffering, but can also give understanding about the final meaning of life.
In this rending story, we see two boys facing life’s most painful challenges while on an uncertain quest to make sense of their suffering. Newbery Medal winner Clare Vanderpool leads the readers through the myriad of trials the two boys encounter as they seek healing and forgiveness. The name of this moving book is “Navigating Early.”
Jackie Baker is an eighth-grader from Kansas. He loves living on the Great Plains and seeing the majestic sunsets over plains covered with shimmering wheat. But World War II changes his entire world. His father enlists in the Navy and is shipped overseas. Jackie lives with his caring mother until tragedy strikes.
One night, when he is sleeping outside in the cool night air, his mother has a brain hemorrhage. Jackie finds her the next day and is haunted by her death. His father, Captain Baker, enrolls Jackie in an elite boarding school in Maine.
Now stripped of his mother and his home, Jackie feels lost and broken. He soon meets another boy, Early Auden, who is fixated on mathematical formulas. Early, too, has suffered great losses, as his father has recently died of a heart attack.
All the boys go to the boat house for practice in rowing. Jackie has never seen a rowboat before and looks very foolish the first time he rows. But Early sees something in Jackie that he himself is unaware of.
When they go back to the boathouse, Jackie sees a beautiful boat named the Maine. He can’t believe how stunning it is. Jackie asks the other boys about the boat. They tell him it belongs to Fisher Auden, the greatest athlete to ever attend the school. Then Jackie learns that Fisher has been killed in France during a battle.
As his friendship with Early develops, Jackie learns that his friend has his brother’s dog tags and a War Department telegram stating he was killed in action. But Early claims that Fisher is not dead and he can prove it through an arrangement of the mathematical number Pi. This seems crazy to Jackie, but on a free week the boys put the Maine into a river and row into the wilderness. They are going to face their searing sorrows on a quest to find the truth. It will be a harrowing journey.
What happens to the boys? Are they able to make sense about life and death? Who are the people attacking the pair as they venture into the wilderness? How do waterfalls, an 1894 Winchester rifle and decades of guilt and anguish influence their quest? Do the boys ever find peace? To find out the answers to questions, go to the library and read this compelling novel, “Navigating Early” by Clare Vanderpool.
This book is outstanding literature. Readers will have to go on a quest with Early and Jackie to understand this story. It is multi-layered and brilliantly written. While the most important parts of the book are the internal issues faced by the two boys, Vanderpool has also woven an exciting action story into the novel.
Clare Vanderpool won the Newbery Medal for her first novel, “Moon Over Manifest.” The Newbery Medal is the highest award in children’s literature and is usually won by seasoned authors. To win the award with your first novel is simply unheard of.
Allow Vanderpool to lead you into this beautiful story. I find her writing and character development to be masterful and filled with a subdued elegance. I hope you get the chance to read this exquisite novel chronicling the triumph of love over suffering.
