Sea Clocks: The Story of Longitude (2004 original; edició 2004)

Following John Harrison, this book is a biography of his life. It describes his struggles and his perseverance to find a clock that could be used accurately at sea. Through many setbacks and challenges, John Harrison found the code to longitude and changed sailing at sea forever. I would use this book on the shelf in my room. It is an interesting read on the history of clocks, but is extremely long for a read aloud. I enjoyed reading the history, but I would not recommend this book to others. ( )

Note that book has two mermaids on the cover with slightly exposed sides of breasts. They are mainly covered by arms but some may want to be aware.

Even though I do not find this content very interesting, I enjoyed the story and the images that went along with it. I do feel the audience is for a younger crowd, around elementary or middle school students. However, this book is very long and drawn out for this crowd. The author does a good job of simplifying the complexities of making a clock to where the reader can understand what’s going on. This is one of the reasons why the book is a bit too long.

The cover pages are very professional looking and the way the book is put together makes it seem like a more information reading. Even though the author is telling a story, and not just facts. One fault with the book is that it has a lot of information and facts about John Harrison, however, nowhere in this book are any sources cited and it does not show that the author is qualified to write about this material. I question the accuracy of this book. ( )

Fun and clever...good illustrations. ( )

The title of this book, Sea Clocks: The Story of Longitude, is a little deceptive. Yes, the picture book reveals how the first clock was invented that could record longitude. However, Borden's book also is an inspirational biography about a humble, but not ordinary, carpenter and clockmaker named John Harrison who persevered over decades, battled London's Board of Longitude and won a 20,000 pounds sterling prize for his invention. Erik Blegvad's illustrations are a little old fashioned (but charming) and make the book seem as if it was written decades ago and not in 2004. ( )