Nice little exploration tale set as a diary with a young stowaway on Capt. Cook's first exploration journey in the Endeavor where they discovered N. Zealand and circled the world. Fun and sad. ( )

good

Okay book, but tedious at times. Lots of unnecessary wordage. ( )

Book on CD read by David Cale

In the summer of 1768 Captain James Cook set sail on H.M.S. Endeavor for a major expedition to explore the possibility of a new continent. In addition to the ship’s crew he carried aboard a naturalist, Mr. Joseph Banks, and his assistants, who would record the flora and fauna encountered on the journey. He also had aboard one Nicholas Young, age 11. All this is known from the public records which have been preserved, and it’s interesting to note that Young doesn’t appear on the ship’s muster until April 18, 1769, eight months after the ship left England. Scholars have speculated about how he might have boarded Endeavor; this is Hesse’s imagined scenario.

I’ve read several of Hesse’s books for children, written in verse, and all based on some historical event. This book is the first prose book I’ve read by her. I was immediately drawn into the story of this boy escaping a situation he hated. (His father had apprenticed Nick to a butcher to “toughen him up.”) He had some education, so Hesse has Nick keeping his own journal of the voyage, and these journal entries are the way in which the story of Endeavor’s first three-years-long voyage is told.

It's a great adventure, and a believable coming-of-age story. Nick is bright, enthusiastic, hard-working and observant. There are crew members who are his champions, and others who are bound and determined to see him fail. He makes some friends and suffers along with others through storms, attacks by native peoples, hunger, damage to the ship and an illness that decimates the crew.

Hesse includes an afterword that explains the history behind the novel, a list of all the people aboard (taken from public records), and a glossary of terms.

David Cale does a fine job of narrating the audiobook. He really brings these characters to life. ( )

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