"Navigating Early"

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool
This was an extraordinary book. I thought it was a little slow and possibly hard to follow right at first, but the way it took me right into the boys' adventure and had me second guessing everything I knew to be true, made this book great! It isn't really a coming of age story although the boys are in their teens, and it isn't necessarily about bonding and growing closer although that happens. Both boys are dealing with a ton of grief and neglect. They go to an all boys school - where one has one parent who is on the military base and the other has no parents left alive, but has the hope of a brother. They set out, Early is in search of his brother who is presumed to have died in the war, and Jack is along for the ride when his dad doesn't visit him on Fall Break. What they find is pirates, an ancient woman, a set of bones, an Austrian hunter, and a lumber jack. The amount of things the boys go through in a weeks time is amazing - finding all along the way how to handle their grief and how to search for the answers themselves instead of taking someone else's opinions as fact. I'm hoping this one wins the Newbery because I did truly fall in love with it - I laughed and cried and told Early to be quiet a few times - this book will suck you in and you will be overjoyed with the ending! A must read for a children's librarian or middle-school teacher!