Nautical Literature for Children

[Joe Montana]

What nautical books have your children (or grandchildren) enjoyed over the years? Think in terms of "classics" or "perennial favorites" that eight-to-twelve year olds might enjoy. I have my own list (Jack London's Sea Wolf and Johan Wyss' Swiss Family Robinson, etc.), but I'd like to hear your ideas. Do any more "contemporary" sailing stories for children come to mind? I'm looking for books that would help "hook" my grandsons on sailing! Your thoughts?

[bhartley]

I can recommend "Cradle of the Deep" by Joan Lowell. Although it is about a girl, it is a great book. It is about a girl who goes to sea with her father on a whaling ship. Had it read to me as a kid (I was 12 and we still enjoyed having it read to us) and my mother found me a copy for Christmas a few years back (at my request) and it was still a great read as an adult!

Another "classic" is "So Sailor's Say" by Charles M. Daugherty. I was a sailing story junkie as a kid. I can't remember the plot on this one, but I liked it enough that the title has stuck with me for 35 years!

Both are available on Alibris and Amazon.

Read now for soon it will be sailing season again!

Bly

[Cathy Monaghan]

Hi Joe,

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson, and another was Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. If they've already read Treasure Island, make sure they read Dead Man's Chest : The Sequel to Treasure Island, by Roger L. Johnson as well.

How about Danger, Dolphins, and Ginger Beer, by John Vigor?

And a few more nautically themed books for children:

• The Wanderer, by Sharon Creech
  Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome (this is a series of 12 books)
  Eel Grass Girls Mystery: Murder Aboard the California Girl, by Rachel Nickerson Luna (as you can see, the Eel Grass Girls Mystery Series is another series of several books)
  Eel Grass Girls Mystery: The Haunting of Captain Snow, by Rachel Nickerson Luna
  Eel Grass Girls Mystery: The Strange Disappearance of Agatha Buck, by Rachel Nickerson Luna
  Eel Grass Girls Mystery: Desperate Message from Freeman's Island, by Rachel Nickerson Luna
  Sea Chase, by Curtis Parkinson
  Pirate Ships: Sailing the High Seas, by Liam O'Donnell and Sarah Knott

It's probably a bit much for an 8-year old, but the 12-year old should enjoy the Horatio Hornblower series of books by C.S. Forester.

Cathy
CD32 Realization, #3
Rahway, NJ
Raritan Bay

[Joe Montana]

Many new ideas here. Thanks Bly & Cathy.

Cathy, isn't Wanderer about a young girl who crosses an ocean with her family? Why am I not surprised you would come up with this one!

Can anyone else suggest books they enjoyed as a child?

The very first book I ever bought for myself was "The Wreck of the Saginaw" by Keith Robertson. I bought it in a 5th grade book sale for $2.50 (hardcover!) and it was even autographed by the author. It's based on an actual 1,000-mile open-boat passage made by sailors shipwrecked in the pacific in the 19th century.

It's still on my bookshelf, and I still like sea-survival stories.

[Joe Montana]

n/m

[Leonard Lookner]

The Wreck of The Zephyr
By Chris Van Allsberg
Chris wrote The Polar Express and it is suitable to the same age group. 4 to 90.
I love this book.

[Paul D.]

Might I weigh in with

Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft, Thor Heyerdahl
Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne

I had a set of abridged versions for children of these (And some of the others already mentioned) and they stuck with me so much I still enjoy the genre. I had a pretty serious wanderlust issue as a boy. I hasn't really gone away yet and these books are partly to credit.

Paul - Currently reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It ain't no Conrad but hey, its winter!

[Joe Ruelle]

Have you considered finding them a sailing video to watch? Like it or not, kids these days are so tuned into watching everything on DVD's. A search on the netflicks.com site for sailing on DVD's will provide you with a list of possible movies.

Books are great, but a video will give them a visual reference to draw upon when reading any of the "great sailing books" mentioned in other messages. I once read a book about mountain climbing and didn't quite understand what they were writing about because I didn't know all of the climbing/mountainering terminology; however, when I watched a video about this book I then had a visual reference and then understood what a "hanging cornice" looked like.

To really hook them: let them do the steering, winching and operate the radio. Kids love action. Nothing is as boring as watching someone else do something fun : engage them in the process on the first outing.

Just my thoughts. till later, Joe

[Steve Behnke]

For pre-teens my family highly recommends The Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome.

The first book is about a family of 4 kids between the World Wars who explore the British Lake Country with a sailing dory, camp out on islands, battle and befriend pirates (the 2 sisters from down the lake), and generally have glorious times and adventures.

"We didn't mean to go to sea" has them accidently crossing the English Channel when the sailboat they've been camping on pulls its anchor in a storm.

The whole series is fun, there is lots of nautical terminology and historical references, and they make great read alouds.

[Tom in Cambria]

For classics you can't beat Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around the World".

Nordhoff and Hall's "Mutiny on the Bounty" is another classic and the movie from the book won the Academy Award back in the 30's. Forget the Marlon Brando later version though.

For something closer to teenage years another classic is Robin Lee Graham's "Dove". It was also made into a golden globe winning movie. But it's partially about falling in love and probably too mature for 8 year olds.

Steven Callahan's "Adrift" is a good tale, but it's about a shipwreck and spending 76 days at sea and might turn young readers off rather than on.

If they like the Hornblower series they might also like the Patrick O'Brian series of books, and, of course, "Master and Commander" was just made into a movie.

[Oswego John]

My all-time favorite book concerning being on the water and boating is a novella by Ernest Hemingway titled The Old Man and the Sea.

It concerns a poor old fisherman in pre Castro Cuba, a young boy who accompanies Santiago, the old man, fishing, and the old man's incredible streak of 84 days of bad luck without catching one fish.

Other than my mentioning a giant marlin, sharks, the Gulf Stream and Joe DiMaggio, I will say no more and ruin the ending in case you might want to read this short masterpiece.

How interesting is it? The year after it was published, it won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the following year, it was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

O J

[John Danicic]

To all:

With the subject of children's sailing literature comes the story of my favorite book as a kid.

Have any of you read the book, "We Merrily Put To Sea"?

It is the story of three orphaned kids and their Grandfather who sail a cutter down the Inter-costal Waterway from New England to Florida. The Grandfather gets sick and has to be hospitalized so the kids invent a "Captain" to sail with and complete the journey on their own. After many adventures, it all works out in the end as most kid books of that era do. Very good descriptions of the East Coast, the waterway and other cruisers, all done in the days when boats were still made of wood, and sails were made of canvas. Nice drawings as well. The kids turned out to be interesting and capable, a good roll model for their age group. An unusual, quiet book that had a tremendous influence on me.

I used to get it out at the library of my home town, we moved and then spent years searching for it at used book stores and garage sales. I even went back to that library intending to find it there. It was gone, tossed out in some literary purge of the 1970s. Finally, Al Gore invented the internet and after typing in a search, 8 copies came up for sale. Turns out it was by Theodora DuBois and published in 1950. I own and jealously guard a copy with the original dust cover with a neatly printed, "Property of Joan Rutter" on the title page.

The boat they sailed was described as a "lovely cutter, thirty five feet overall" drawing four feet nine. Drawings depicted a cockpit with tall sloping teak-board connings and a sleek, sexy overhang.

Life imitating art.

Sail on.

John Danicic
CD 36 -Mariah- #124 cutter
Lake Superior

[Roy J.]

I read "Danger, Dolphins and Ginger Beer" by J. Vigor with my son when he was around 11. Having read the marvelous Arthur Ransome Amazons and Swallowtails series later, I particularly appreciated the way they both promote an excellent idea: that children should venture out in small boats on their own, even and especially in their imaginations. The JV book is set in the tropics, and the kids island hop through wonderful adventures. Highly recommended. As a teen, Alex read Lionheart by Jesse Martin, the memoir of a teenaged circumnavigator. Also quite good.

[Stan W.]

The older boy might be ready for these classics:The Pilot, James Fennimore Cooper; Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling; Captain Blood, Rafael Sabatini. The latter two have the advantage that after you read the book you can watch the movie (also true of Flying Colours from the Hornblower series mentioned above which was filmed as Captain Horatio Hornblower).

[Joe Montana]

Thanks for all the book suggestions; many were new to me and I've added them to my list. We've decided on "Treasure Island" -- and I've already sent the book off to my grandsons, who are out of the country for a couple of years. We plan to read it chapter by chapter and "discuss" by email. If this goes well, we'll do others down the road. These days young people are so immersed in The Hobbit, Narnia and Harry Potter that it will be interesting to see what they think of Stevenson. Thanks to all of you who responded.

I hope others will continue making suggestions.