{"id":511,"date":"2022-09-29T17:05:43","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T15:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/?page_id=511"},"modified":"2022-09-29T17:06:04","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T15:06:04","slug":"sailing-the-unknown-review-by-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/sailing-the-unknown-review-by-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSailing the Unknown\u201d review by the New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Creative Editions-Mankato, MN. USA 2012<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

A young boy conscripted aboard a ship of seasoned sailors. A journey to faraway lands in an uncharted world. A tale of cannibals and exotic creatures and devastating illness. This could be the makings of the latest young adult action thriller. Instead it\u2019s a strikingly illustrated picture book for older readers, piquantly evocative of centuries-old historical events.In \u201cSailing the Unknown: Around the World With Captain Cook,\u201d the poet Michael J. Rosen (\u201cChanukah Lights,\u201d \u201cThe Hound Dog\u2019s Haiku\u201d) imagines the journal of the real-life 11-year-old Nicholas Young, the youngest sailor aboard Captain Cook\u2019s Endeavour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know very little of the real Young, a delinquent forced into service aboard the ship, where one of his jobs was to care for a milk goat. But we do know, tantalizingly, that he was the first on board to spot the coast of New Zealand and, nearly three years later, the first to spy the English coast on the way home. Not bad fodder for a children\u2019s book, especially one written with acuity and imagination. Rosen writes Nicholas\u2019s journal in playfully archaic shorthand, beginning with the first journal entry on Aug. 19, 1768:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce there\u2019s a fair Wind,
Endeavour will leave England for a Continent
None has mapped \u2014 None knows exists.
She will not return soon \u2014 if She returns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicholas\u2019s adventures would be hard to rival in fiction. At Tierra del Fuego \u2014 Land of Fire \u2014 he encounters \u201cStrange People\u201d who \u201cwear not even Fig Leaves for Modesty or Warmth,\u201d yet survive the cold by fire alone. There are strong swells as the ship rounds the Cape, and the crew\u2019s spirits don\u2019t lift until the boat hits Tahiti, where the sailors encounter tattoos for the first time (\u201c7 Mates now wear Them forever\u201d). The Maori of New Zealand not only make stew of the crew\u2019s candles and shoes, \u201cThey eat foes slain in Battle!\u201d Worms, coral reefs and mosquitoes each wreak their own kind of havoc. Rosen\u2019s shorthand journal entries often read like poetry, as in this entry, on Day 602 of the voyage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWinds write a new Mystery \u2014 They pinch the Sea,
as if between Fingers, swirling Water Columns skyward.
The Spouts swell and vanish \u2014 then only Seabirds.
Endeavour is their Mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Cristina Pritelli\u2019s illustrations, at once painterly and panoramic, are also intimate and approachable, as if Tintin had been dropped into the tableaus of an 18th-century seascape painter. Some of her scenic acrylics are breathtaking: on the beachfront of \u201cTerra Australis Incognita,\u201d with clouds wavering between land and earth, Aboriginal figures with spears appear on a sunlit strip of liquid sand, their otherworldly shapes silhouetted as they approach the tentative, unwanted explorers. Throughout, the book\u2019s elongated rectangular format creates the impression of forward momentum; its horizontal spreads echo the wide vista at sea. In places, the illustrations are out of step with the text. On one spread, as Rosen describes the stifling heat, the nausea of seasickness, the lice and rope burns and greasy ropes, Pritelli\u2019s cartoonlike spot drawings show the peppy boy beholding the wind, milking the ship\u2019s goat and generally busying himself on deck with a smile on his face.
But for the most part Nicholas\u2019s small-scale figure provides a welcome human perspective to the imposing scale of Cook\u2019s grand circumnavigation. Nicholas\u2019s imagined journals may offer only one tiny window into this great adventure tale, but young readers\u2019 interest will almost certainly be piqued. Next stop: James Cook\u2019s own journals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Pamela Paul
The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A young boy conscripted aboard a ship of seasoned sailors. A journey to faraway lands in an uncharted world. A tale of cannibals and exotic creatures and devastating illness. This could be the makings of the latest young adult action thriller. Instead it\u2019s a strikingly illustrated picture book for older readers, piquantly evocative of centuries-old historical events.In \u201cSailing the Unknown: Around the World With Captain Cook,\u201d the poet Michael J. Rosen (\u201cChanukah Lights,\u201d \u201cThe Hound Dog\u2019s Haiku\u201d) imagines the journal of the real-life 11-year-old Nicholas Young, the youngest sailor aboard Captain Cook\u2019s Endeavour. We know very little of the real\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-511","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":5}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":513,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/511\/revisions\/513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariacristinapritelli.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}