60 pages • 2 hours read
Navigating Early
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Summary and Study Guide
Overview
Navigating Early (2013) is a novel by Clare Vanderpool. A coming-of-age book, it follows 13-year-old Jack Baker and his friend, Early Auden, who set off on a quest together to look for a great black bear, shaped by the story of the number pi. The book explores themes of grief and loss, empathy, and alternate perspectives.
Clare Vanderpool is an award-winning American author who writes children’s books. Her novel, Moon Over Manifest (2010), won the John Newberry Medal in 2011 and made the New York Times Best Seller list the same year.
This guide is based on the Random House Children’s Books Kindle Edition.
Plot Summary
After his mother’s death, 13-year-old John “Jack” Baker III from Kansas is enrolled in Morton Hill Academy, a boarding school in Maine closest to his father, Captain John Baker Jr.’s posting at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Jack is still grieving his mother’s death and does not feel close to his father, who has been away fighting in the European Theater since Jack was nine. At school, Jack meets Early Auden, a classmate whose parents have both passed away. He attends whichever classes he pleases and lives in a workshop he has made for himself instead of the dorms.
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