THE VOYAGE OF PATIENCE GOODSPEED

Charlotte Doyle goes a-whaling. Well, not quite, but this feisty heroine owes a lot to her seagoing forebear. When her widowed father, the captain of a Nantucket whaler, determines to take his two children to sea with him, 12-year-old Patience is reluctant to go. After all, she has been studying with Miss Maria Mitchell and shows especial promise in mathematics; a years-long sea voyage would be an unbearable interruption in her studies. But Captain Goodspeed proves to be as irresistible as the tide, and Patience and six-year-old Tad join the crew of the Morning Star, where she comforts herself by learning the art of navigation. The plot is as predictable as a whale is big: the two rough characters Patience encounters on the docks at the beginning naturally show up on board to dog her, forming the core of the inevitable mutiny led by a scurrilous replacement first mate. Patience, having won over the bulk of the crew, puts her navigational skills to the test and manages almost single-handedly to thwart the mutiny and to rescue the Morning Star. Sound familiar? Still, if the plot is a wee bit transparent, the details surrounding it are rich, from the descriptions of sailing and whaling to the colorful cast of characters that make up the crew to the emotional journey both Patience and her father must travel as they grieve her mother and establish a new relationship with each other. Newcomer Frederick appends an author’s note, two recipes, a glossary, and an acknowledgments page that bespeaks the considerable research behind the novel. A solid, if not particularly venturesome, adventure. (Fiction. 9-12)