Happy Pi Day! today is an extra special Pi Day since the date (3-14-15) gives five digits of pi instead of the usual three. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than to share a book that weaves a story of Pi throughout a quest for two boys–and even more characters they meet along the way–to find their way home again.

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 Jack Baker has lost his bearings after the death of his mother. Instead of letting him stay in Kansas where landmarks show up against the sky, his father, a Naval officer before and during World War II, drops him to find his way alone at the Morton Hill Academy for Boys in Cape Fealty, Maine.

Jack narrates the story of his friendship with Early Auden, “the strangest of boys,” in a voice that is both matter of fact and heartbreaking. Jack makes a half-hearted attempt to fit in with the other boys, but there is too much he doesn’t know (rowing, the sea, school legends), and too much that they don’t know (grief, homesickness, lostness). Instead, Jack finds himself drawn to the mysterious Early.

Early rarely shows up to class. He has a workshop in the basement. He listens to Mozart on Sundays, Louis Armstrong on Mondays, Frank Sinatra on Wednesdays, Glen Miller on Fridays and Billie Holiday when it’s raining. When he looks at Pi, he sees colors and textures. He is convinced that Pi is lost and shares the story revealed in the numbers with Jack as they work together to build (or rebuild) a better boat. Jack even learns to row in a straight line with Early as his coxswain shouting out directions.

When Jack’s father doesn’t show up as planned for fall break, Jack joins Early on a quest to find Pi–and Early’s dead brother Fisher–and bring him home before he disappears completely. As they journey deeper and deeper into the Maine wilderness, they encounter characters that offer help and harm: loggers/pirates, a gruff woodsman and outdoor guide, a lonely old woman, an ugly girl who turns out to be beautiful and the biggest grizzly bear on the Appalachian Trail. Will they ever find their way home again?

I love the way Clare Vanderpool weaves together multiple stories in Navigating Early (Delacorte Press 2013). Both Jack and Early bounce between their past and present stories. Each of the characters they meet has a story as well. Then there is the story of Pi, that only Early can see in the numbers. Each of the stories and the characters within them connect in surprising ways. I will be thinking about this book for some time to come and looking at the connections in my own life in a new way.

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