NAVIGATING EARLY
BY CLARE VANDERPOOL | PUBLICATION: JANUARY 8, 2013DELACORTE BOOKS | GENRE: CHILDREN’S BOOKS
RATING: ★★★★★
“A tender story about losing your way and learning, with courage and grace, how to find the path back home.”
____________________________________________________________________
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.
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.
____________________________________________________________________
A Trail, A Bear, and A Soldier
At its heart, Navigating Early is a story about grief, disorientation, and the long, winding journey back toward hope. It is a novel about losing your way and learning how to return to life again. As I’ve said before, this is the kind of book that stitches your heart back together in the right places—precisely the sort of inspiration my countrymen and I need in these catastrophic times.
“…the team captains had yet to learn: life can’t be held in a cup, and nothing lasts forever.”
Set in the aftermath of World War II—a period when the world itself was trying to heal—the story follows 13 year old Jack Baker from Kansas. After losing his mother to a sudden aneurysm, Jack is sent to a boarding school in Maine while his father continues his service in the Navy. Jack struggles to adjust to his new environment, stumbling through each day with a sense of displacement and loneliness. Everything changes when he meets Early Auden, a boy unlike anyone he has ever encountered.
“For me, they are blue and purple and sand and ocean and rough and smooth and loud and whispering, all at the same time.”
Early is a challenge to navigate—brilliant, unusual, and deeply perceptive. While it may be tempting to label him, what stands out most is his extraordinary way of experiencing the world. He appears to have multiple forms of synesthesia, perceiving numbers as colors, days as personalities, and memories as vivid spatial sequences. His mind is a tapestry of patterns and connections, and through him, Jack begins to see life differently.
“Early needed the numbers to continue, the story to continue, and he needed Pi to stay alive.”
Most remarkable is Early’s Number Form Synesthesia, through which he envisions Pi (3.14159…) as a living story—a quest that he and Jack must follow. Their journey becomes both literal and symbolic: as they trace Pi’s path, they encounter people whose lives mirror the trials within Early’s tale. Each meeting reveals something essential about loss, courage, and the quiet ways people find their way back to themselves. Completing the quest becomes not only Jack and Early’s triumph, but a healing for others as well.
“It’s the same up there as it is down here, Jackie. You have to look for the things that connect us all…”
Clare Vanderpool masterfully blurs the line between narrative threads, turning coincidences into meaningful intersections. Her storytelling is patient and deliberate, revealing details with care and crafting characters who feel both tender and unforgettable.
“I got lost.
I know, but you found your way back… It’s knowing how to find your way back home that’s important.”
Overall, Navigating Early is a deeply rewarding read—lovely, inspiring, and quietly profound. I highly recommend it.
At its heart, Navigating Early is a story about grief, disorientation, and the long, winding journey back toward hope. It is a novel about losing your way and learning how to return to life again. As I’ve said before, this is the kind of book that stitches your heart back together in the right places—precisely the sort of inspiration my countrymen and I need in these catastrophic times.
“…the team captains had yet to learn: life can’t be held in a cup, and nothing lasts forever.”
Set in the aftermath of World War II—a period when the world itself was trying to heal—the story follows 13 year old Jack Baker from Kansas. After losing his mother to a sudden aneurysm, Jack is sent to a boarding school in Maine while his father continues his service in the Navy. Jack struggles to adjust to his new environment, stumbling through each day with a sense of displacement and loneliness. Everything changes when he meets Early Auden, a boy unlike anyone he has ever encountered.
“For me, they are blue and purple and sand and ocean and rough and smooth and loud and whispering, all at the same time.”
Early is a challenge to navigate—brilliant, unusual, and deeply perceptive. While it may be tempting to label him, what stands out most is his extraordinary way of experiencing the world. He appears to have multiple forms of synesthesia, perceiving numbers as colors, days as personalities, and memories as vivid spatial sequences. His mind is a tapestry of patterns and connections, and through him, Jack begins to see life differently.
“Early needed the numbers to continue, the story to continue, and he needed Pi to stay alive.”
Most remarkable is Early’s Number Form Synesthesia, through which he envisions Pi (3.14159…) as a living story—a quest that he and Jack must follow. Their journey becomes both literal and symbolic: as they trace Pi’s path, they encounter people whose lives mirror the trials within Early’s tale. Each meeting reveals something essential about loss, courage, and the quiet ways people find their way back to themselves. Completing the quest becomes not only Jack and Early’s triumph, but a healing for others as well.
“It’s the same up there as it is down here, Jackie. You have to look for the things that connect us all…”
Clare Vanderpool masterfully blurs the line between narrative threads, turning coincidences into meaningful intersections. Her storytelling is patient and deliberate, revealing details with care and crafting characters who feel both tender and unforgettable.
“I got lost.
I know, but you found your way back… It’s knowing how to find your way back home that’s important.”
Overall, Navigating Early is a deeply rewarding read—lovely, inspiring, and quietly profound. I highly recommend it.
TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | BLOGLOVIN | GOODREADS
About the Author:
Clare Vanderpool, recipient of the 2011 Newbery Award, is a resident of Wichita, Kansas. She has a degree in English and Elementary Education and enjoys reading, going to the pool with her children, the television show Monk, and visiting the bookstores in her town.
Clare Vanderpool, recipient of the 2011 Newbery Award, is a resident of Wichita, Kansas. She has a degree in English and Elementary Education and enjoys reading, going to the pool with her children, the television show Monk, and visiting the bookstores in her town.
____________________________________________________________________
 |
| F2F, January 2015 Photo courtesy of Maria Ella Bestos |
Posts
Ooooohhh! I love Claire Vanderpool! Her Newberry-winning novel, Moon Over Manifest, was one of my best reads last year. It was heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. I'll definitely read this one.
ReplyDeleteIf you like the narrative style of Vanderpool, then I think you'd also like the novels of Gary Schmidt. My favorites are Okay for Now and Wednesday Wars, which was my best read for 2011.
Thank you, Peter!
DeleteAdding those books to my TBR pile. ♥
Oh, Early is a name pala! This book seems pretty awesome! I do enjoy reading books with extraordinary kids in them. Like the Mysterious Benedict Society kids and the Baudelaire kids. The only time I heard of Claire Vanderpool was when you recommended this book to me on Goodreads. And Peter mentioned Gary Schmidt. I have a copy of his Lizzie Bright and Buckminster Boy which I haven't read yet. :)
ReplyDeleteI think you'll like both Early and Ms. Vanderpool, Tin! ♥
Delete