VOYAGE OF THE VAGABOND

It's one of those stories about two children all alone against the elements. In this case there is enough detail about the episode to make it seem plausible, and the matter of fact, informal tone of the fourteen year old narrator does not belie the danger involved. The boy was giving his small boat a trial run and got carried too far out to sea. Around Nantucket Sound he managed to board a good-sized sailboat--- then discovered that it was deserted except for an eleven year old girl. The evidence indicated that while she had been asleep, her Grandfather and the crew had had a scuffle and been washed over. It was the storm season, and the only course seemed to be to head for Bermuda. They both were limited in their sailing lore, but managed to overcome this with a lot of homework in the ship's library (readers may find the passed-on information excessive). There's a lot of bungling along the way, but they do manage to hit their mark. The story is too exclusively dependent on the physical events of the journey, but it's a good show.