From AwardAnnals
Results of the Newbery Medal in the year 1956. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
Jean Lee Latham
Readers today are still fascinated by "Nat," an eighteenth-century nautical wonder and mathematical wizard. Nathaniel Bowditch grew up in a sailors world—Salem in the early days, when tall-masted ships from foreign ports crowded the wharves. But Nat didnt promise to have the makings of a sailor; he was too physically small. Nat may have been slight of build, but no one guessed that he had the persistence and determination to master sea navigation in the days when men sailed only by "log, lead, and lookout." Nats long hours of study and observation, collected in his famous work,
The American Practical Navigator (also known as the "Sailors Bible"), stunned the sailing community and made him a New England hero.
