Clare Vanderpool's Navigating Early

The New York Times best seller “Navigating Early”,by Clare Vanderpool, is a story of wonder and following the stars. While relying heavily on the stars and constellations, it also relies on the immense development of its characters. The novel follows tennagers Jack Baker and Early Auden on Early’s quest to find Pi. As Jack is dragged along on this seemingly pointless adventure, it makes him think and better understand his life. Ever since his mother died, he and his father had been very disconnected and this journey through the Appalachian Mountains makes him realize that he should try to understand his father and get along with him. As Jack struggles to come to terms with his mother’s death and his father’s aloofness, Early also has his own
Earlier in his life, he had lost his brother, Fisher Auden, in the war. Everyone said he was dead, yet Early refuses to believe this. He starts to interpret the digits of Pi as a story and believes this story will take him to his brother. Early is actually on the Autism spectrum, and is somewhat of a “idiot savant” in mathematics. He believes he can read numbers as a story, and the story of Pi is similar to that of his brother. “Early circled the number one. “This is Pi. And the rest of the numbers are his story.”(Vanderpool 31) With this knowledge in hand, he has been preparing for a journey to find his long lost brother. When Jack arrives and the two meet and begin talking, it is clear that Jack will go with Early on this adventure through the forests of Maine, although he is very
As I stated above, Jack was very skeptical of this adventure and only went because he had nothing else to do after being left at the Academy during holiday. As they trek through the mountains they encounter many things anywhere from bootleggers to an old widow looking for her son. All of these things are strangely connected to the story of Pi and his journey. As Jack sees these strange connections, he starts to believe in Early’s tale. “But something had stirred in me. It had started days before and had been growing in me all along this journey. Was it curiosity? A sense of adventure? It felt more like a need. Whatever it was, it was powerful.”(Vanderpool 224) He starts to connect to Early in a sense, and he opens his mind to more possibilities. One of these being a better relationship with his father. When the journey is over, he talks to his father more and opens up to him. As for Early, he never found Pi. He did, however, find his brother. Even though the two family members were reunited, Fisher didn’t feel like he could come home. Early is heartbroken and crushed, yet Jack knows how to help. “Fisher might have once been a school hero and a legend. But now he was a soldier. And I needed to find another person who could speak the language that a soldier would understand.”(Vanderpool 279) With this, Jack goes to his father. Jack’s dad and Fisher talk for a long while, in that soldier