Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham

1956 Newbery Winner
Finished 12-25-08

Our family owns this book, and as such, I’ve read it several times throughout the years. Funny story: it took me for-ever to figure out that Nathaniel Bowditch was a real person. I always thought it was just a nice story about some fictional guy. I don’t really remember when I discovered that Nathaniel Bowditch actually lived—I just remember sputtering to my sister over it. She was pretty amazed that I’d never figured it out.

At any rate, the book is a retelling of the life of Nathaniel Bowditch, a man who did much for the art of navigation in the 1700s. Nat loves working with numbers, but at the age of twelve, he is forced to drop out of school and become indentured for nine years. Yet he refuses to give up. Using hard work and perseverance (what he calls “Sailing by the ash breeze”), he teaches himself all he can about mathematics and things related to it. In addition, he learns three new languages—all the result of plain hard work.

After his indenture is over, Nat signs on a ship. There he learns about navigation and teaches the common men on the ship that they, too, are smart enough to learn how to navigate if only they work hard enough. He soon becomes disgusted with the quality of the books of that day on navigation, and makes it his goal to write a book that even the unschooled seaman can understand.

I’m not sure whether it’s good or bad that it took me so long to figure out this wasn’t a fictional book. I’m inclined to think it’s good. The author worked the facts so smoothly into the book, that I obviously didn’t even notice. It’s filed in the biography section in one of my local libraries, but it doesn’t read like a long list of facts. The author created fictitious dialogue, so it isn’t strictly a facts book at all. It’s more like the story of his life. I, for one, really like that effect.

The character of Nathaniel Bowditch is definitely memorable. His sister claimed that he couldn’t even “pay a compliment without arithmetic”, he was so enamored with mathematics. Jean Lee Latham brought him alive for me, and for that reason, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch makes my top ten list.