THE BOY WHO SAILED AROUND THE WORLD ALONE

It took Robin Lee Graham five years (from July, 1965 to April, 1970) and it was far from a nonstop voyage. For one thing he kept stopping to explore tropical islands or motorcycle through Africa with Patti, an American gift he met in the Fiji Islands and married (at eighteen) in South Africa. Still he did circle the earth, financed by the National Geographic but coping alone (except for a series of cats who came and went on the 24-foot Dove), with loneliness, a broken mast, storms and doldrums. Robin's unsophisticated diary makes no pretense to style or ideas, but the journey ""across oceans and to so many exciting places"" does read like a boy's daydream come true.