YA Fanatic

Claire Vanderpool has a way with words. Her writing is beautiful, descriptive, and flows easily. Though, I give Navigating Early an average writing, I'm looking forward to reading Moon Over Manifest (I don't know why I haven't gotten to it yet!)

Taking place during World War II, Jack Baker is sent off to a boy's boarding school in Maine after his mothers sudden death to bring him closer to his father who is in the army. While there he befriends a strange boy named Early.

Early and Auden go off on an adventure through the Appalachian in hunt of a wild bear. Along the way they meet strange characters and find adventures like no in the wild. All while Auden is trying to figure Early out.

The characters are descriptive and rather beautiful. The plot being similar to that of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer (minus the slavery aspect.) A book full of adventure and love. Perfect ingredients for a middle grade book.

Though, its rather beautiful, I give it a 3.5 stars because I found myself zoning out halfway through the book, losing interest in what was happening. I found myself skimming a lot of it just to get it finished. It might be because the characters are a lot younger than myself or that I've never been big on adventure stories like these.

It's certainly something I would recommend and say you give it a try!