What to Do?

When I read the books I'm going to blog about I use a slip of paper as  bookmark.  On this slip of paper I write the quotes that I think will be good to blog about.  When it comes time to write about that book I pull out that slip of paper, read over the quotes, and decide what part of the book I will focus on for this blog based on what I remember and what I wrote down.This explains why the floor of my room is littered with scraps of paper.  Normally what I write down really fits the flavor of the book. However, there are days like today when all I seem to have written down were trivial details.  So what I will write today is a generic summary with one of my seemingly trivial details (which is still a quote I love) inserted somewhere.

Jean Lee Latham's Carry on Mr. Bowditdch is the inspiring story (and yes, I feel lame as I describe it that way, but stay with me) of Nathaniel Bowditch as he, "sails by the ash breeze."  Nat is very smart, one of those star pupils every teacher dreams about.  At a young age he is pegged as someone who needs to go to Harvard.  But instead of starting college Nat is given a nine year indenture.  But Nat makes the most of it, a.k.a. sails by the ash breeze, and never stops learning.

He learns at least three languages, he learns navigation, he reads Galileo-after translating it from the actual Latin of course.  He uses all the tools at his disposal to learn as much as he possibly can.  One of my favorite parts was this conversation between Nat and Mr. Jordy, a sailor who is from France who agreed to teach Nat French in return for help with his English. "I don't see how you get that out of it, French pronunciation must be crazy."  "Not at all," Mr. Jordy insisted, "take three words rough, cough, and dough.  Excepting for their first letter, they are all spelled alike.  But how are the pronounced?"  Point taken-and all teachers of phonics say amen.

This is another book that follows the main character into adulthood.  Wonderful things happen to Nat (including how the book got it's title), but I must warn you there is also a bit of tragedy.  But that's life and this book is excellent so you should read it.

Learning...that's kids stuff.