Sailing By Ash Breeze

One of the best books I've read recently is actually a children's book, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham. It was assigned as a "read-aloud" for my two younger children's curriculum, which means that the parent reads the book aloud to the child and they have discussions together about the book. Kind of like having your own tiny book club at home. But I digress...

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch is a wonderfully written account of the life of Nathaniel Bowditch, (1773-1838) who is famous in the history of navigation for writing what became the book on sailing for American sailors for over 150 years. It's worth reading the Wikipedia article on him--this man will amaze you. In a nutshell, he was a math genius whose family was too poor to send him to school--they needed him to work to help support the family. Instead of letting this get him down, he taught himself Latin so that he could read Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, and actually found an error in that famous work. He eventually learned to speak French and Spanish, also, so that he could communicate with sailors from those countries on his travels. His dream had always been to go to Harvard, and later in his life that institution gave him an honorary degree based on his life accomplishments. It is an inspiring book, cleverly written with humor, and I would recommend it to anyone who loves history, sailing, or both.

And what does "sailing by ash breeze" mean? You'll have to read the book to find out....or I suppose you could Google it, you computer freaks out there. I encourage you to read the book.