Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool

Hello everyone, Alexa here! Today, I get to review another historical set around the same time as last week’s,but taking place on the east coast, in Maine, instead of Hollywood

Description From Inside Cover:

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.

Newbery Medal-winning author Clare Vanderpool’s classic storytelling style will challenge and astound readers as they navigate mysterious and uncharted lands.

Plot:

This story is just beautiful. It’s intricate and complex with all kinds of tiny plotlines and character nuances you don’t even catch till you get close to the end. I loved all the little plot points and pieces that didn’t seem remotely important in the moment, but were absolutely vital later. From Pi’s story to Jack and Early’s to the lives of all the people around them, nothing was left to waste, not a single character or plotline left dangling. Every single word counted in a brilliant and beautiful way.

I remember nearing the end and just having to stop and take a break because wow. I was completely in awe of the story. And it wasn’t awe in an OMG-I-LOVE-THIS-SO-MUCH-I’M-FANGIRL-FLAILING kind of way. But more of a bittersweet, this is sad but this is life and learning and growing up and moving on, and the truth of it all, the life about it and the realness of it, that was beautiful. It just felt real. Like I could’ve reached out and touched the dirt from the graves or hugged the boys and told them it was okay, even if it wasn’t but could be someday. The entire story just… made me feel. A lot. And I was almost overwhelmed with the emotion of it being so beautiful and sad, entertaining and sobering all at once.

Altogether, it was a stunningly gorgeous story, and I am marvelously glad that I got the chance to read it.

Plot: 5 billion stars out of 5.

Characters:

Aw, these boys. I loved them both (though Early may or may not be my favorite 😉 ) and watching them go on their adventures (both inwardly and outwardly) was just amazing. I loved their dynamic, how they learned to relate to each other, and how they slowly but surely—Early, that strangest of boys, and Jack, the boy set adrift—grew to trust each other and become true friends.

Jack was your typical early-teenage boy, but he’d just experienced a loss that set him apart from all the others, swept him away to a point where he almost felt like he couldn’t be reached. He had the farthest to go and the most to learn, but I loved reading about him. Like everything else in this book, he felt so real, like a true person. He had some weaknesses and he made some mistakes, but they made sense for his character and, more importantly, he didn’t just stay in those mistakes. He grew from them, learned how to not do the same stupid thing again. He was complex and interesting, but also hurting and lost. It took him some time (nearly the whole book), but watching him find his bearings, figure out how he could work with his new version of life, was wonderful to read.

Early, of course, was marvelous. Strange for sure, but strange is beautiful. He was super smart, and I loved his dialogue, the little rambles about things that seemed totally random but probably made perfect sense to him, lol. I loved how he made the connections that no one else could see and saved Jack, along with so many others, in doing so.

But perhaps the most interesting thing about Early was that he got to do some growing too. He wasn’t just this perfect little angel-child who helped out everyone around him and made them all realize the problems in their lives and suddenly discover how to fix them with his strange but adorable charm. Early also had flaws and problems, and I feel like he learned a lot through their journey as well. The few moments where you realize how much he really did feel and grow were priceless, and I loved every second I got to glimpse the world through Early’s eyes.

Characters: 5 stars out of 5.

Writing Style/Setting:

The style of this writing felt a bit different to me. I’m not sure what it was: The slightly poetic feel? The unique comparisons to stars, sand, and other parts of nature? A combination of both and something a bit more? Probably that last one, but the point is, whatever it was that made it unique also made it that much more beautiful.

That in mind, you’ll understand that there are about a quarter million quotes in this book that I loved, lol. But I’ll just share this one because I think it really describes what the entire story is about:

Connecting the dots. That’s what Mom said stargazing is all about. “It’s the same up there as it is down here, Jackie. You have to look for the things that connect us all. Find the ways our paths cross, our lives intersect, and our hearts collide.”

Writing Style/Setting: 5 stars out of 5.

And so we come in at beyond 5 stars out of 5 for this phenomenal book. In short, I loved it: it was captivating, enchanting, and downright magical. I wasn’t so much engrossed in the story as absorbed by it. It made me feel things I hardly knew could be felt, and it just may be my new favorite historical ever. Obviously, I very strongly recommend it, and you can pick up your own copy here for $7.99.

So, what’s a good historical you’ve read lately? What’s the last book you read that made you feel things you didn’t even know could be felt? That seemed so… true that everything else, every other story, just shrunk in comparison? I’d love to hear about your experiences. 🙂