Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Have you ever felt lonely?  Forgotten?  Disadvantaged?  Felt like there was nothing that you could do, that you were stuck in one place forever?  So did Nathaniel Bowditch, yet he sailed "by ash breeze" to become one of the greatest authorities on navigation in the world.

This has got to be one of my absolute favorite books ever, and yet so few people have heard of it or the man whose life it sets forth.  I find that terribly tragic.  Nathaniel Bowditch saved the lives of many men, through his tireless effort and ceaseless learning, and nobody learns about him any more.  Jean Lee Latham did her best to remedy this horrid injustice when she wrote this Newbery Medal Winner, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.

We first meet Nathaniel Bowditch as a boy.  This was at a time when America had just gained her liberty from England, and was struggling to compete on the high seas and in the world of trading.  Hundreds of men left American shores on contraptions of wood, metal, tar, and fabric, to reach distant shores with nothing but the sun, moon, stars, and their few navigational tools.  Their success astounds me, two hundred odd years later.  But even so, the toll on human life was staggering.  Some men tried to follow the charts and tables, published by notable British scholars, but there were too many errors in them to be reliable.


Nathaniel Bowditch, with almost no formal schooling, but with plenty of experience and knack for these things, could not help but notice the errors and the price that his family and those he loved had to pay, in worry and grief for their loved ones.

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch encourages me every time I feel down or discouraged.  Don't let the sad parts turn you off - what is a good story without some sorrow to temper the glory?  The ending of the book is one of the most powerful and compelling of any book I have ever read. 

This then, is the true story of how an obscure American young man became supreme in the world of navigation, which up until then, had been controlled almost solely by the British.  Ultimately, it is a story of love, grief, hard work, perseverance, and values.