Newbery Medal (John Newbery Medal)
All Sail Set: A Romance of the Flying Cloud (Nonpareil Book, 35)
A sea-going adventure follows a boy who helps out on the legendary clipper Flying Cloud and learns the craft and discipline of life under sail. The book combines historical detail with the excitement of a record-breaking voyage.
Work Information
A famous clipper ship gives one boy a larger horizon than he ever expected.
Set against the building and maiden voyage of the Flying Cloud, the novel sends Enoch Thatcher into the world of sailing and shipwork. Its detailed nautical setting and steady sense of adventure make it a classic of historical children’s fiction.
Review Summaries
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Readers value the careful ship detail and the steady forward motion of the story. The tone is old-fashioned, but the novel still stands out for its sense of maritime excitement and technical vividness.
Book Information
- Publisher
- David R. Godine, Publisher
- Published
- 1995-02-23
- Pages
- 175 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.24 x 1.5 x 22.91 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780879235239
- ISBN-10
- 0879235233
- Price
- 5136 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Children's Books/Literature & Fiction/Historical Fiction
An exciting, fact-based, old-fashioned tale of adventure at sea, winner of a Newbery Honor for young readers in 1936. When his father loses his fortune at sea, a boy, Enoch Thacher, signs up with a famous shipbuilder and takes a record-breaking trip around Cape Horn on the famous Flying Cloud . The Flying Cloud was a real ship and its maker was master shipbuilder, Donald McKay (1810-1880). The era depicted in this novel is a time when the windships were the queens of the ocean and sail was king. McKay’s company, located in East Boston, launched many of the fastest clipper ships in history, with Flying Cloud being his most famous ship of all. In All Sail Set , McKay puts Enoch to work during the lofting, building, and rigging of the Flying Cloud , and then to ship out on her for her maiden, record-breaking trip around the Horn. Accompanied by Sperry’s wonderfully vigorous drawings, this realistic nautical yarn from the glory days of sail will appeal to adults as well as young adult readers with a taste for historical adventure.
Armstrong Sperry was a beloved author and illustrator of children’s literature. As a child, he was fascinated by adventure novels such as Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island, which led him to embark on a year-long tour of the South Pacific that would inspire much of his work. He won the 1941 Newbery Medal for Call It Courage , a novel about a young boy on the island of Hikueru in Polynesia, and wrote or illustrated dozens of other books for young people. After many adventures, he moved with his family to Hanover, New Hampshire, where he lived until his death in 1976. William McFee was one of the twentieth century’s most beloved authors of sea stories. He spent a large portion of his own life at sea, including its first moments; he was born on his father’s three-masted ship Erin’s Isle .
Reviews
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Though he writes for younger readers, Sperry has an unmatched gift for writing adventure tales. This reissue is an essential of its genre and takes you in a clipper ship around the Horn to California. Of all the sea stories I've read--Hornblower, Aubrey/Maturin--this little work actually managed to explain more sailing terminology than 21 volumes of the O'Brien series. And the author's superb woodcuts fit the story perfectly. What sets this story apart is its ability to convey the adventure of going to sea, the wonder of the open ocean, of exploring remote places seldom visited by man. For this deskbound reviewer who is hardpressed to get off to Catalina Island for a weekend, this tale of taking a clipper ship around the Horn earned a privileged place in the library. This book would make a welcome gift to any young person who is beginning to realize that the world is a large and interesting place and teaches an excellent lesson about how a blend of hard work, study and self-confidence can help one through just about any challenge.
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Any fan of Armstrong Sperry will adore this tale of the South Seas and admire the wonderful illustrations. Very inspiring!
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As I said in my review of Flying Cloud: The True Story of ..., I have loved Flying Cloud since I was a boy. As a matter of fact, I think this may have been one of the books I read about Flying Cloud when I was a preteen boy. After reading ... The True Story ..., I now know that this short novel is indeed more fiction than I had thought. But its title says it is "a romance", so understand it is a historical fiction novel. It spins the tale of a boy/young man (15 year olds were considered young men in the time of this novel) on his adventure as a part of the building of Flying Cloud, and as a part of the crew on Flying Cloud's record setting maiden voyage between New York and San Francisco around the tip of South America. I believe anyone will enjoy this book, especially young readers.
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A wonderful book, a true story about an epic voyage around Cape Horn, kinda like Two Years Before the Mast. Every teenager should read this.
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Interesting for me because I have been trying to learn more about the great sailing ship builers and the ships' masters.