| "A Stormy Night||October 22, 1707||It was a mean and dirty night. The wind howled, and waves the size of small mountains crashed against the sailing ship.||Suddenly there was a sickening thud. A loud crack. The ship shuddered, then split open. It had slammed into a reef near the Scilly Isles, the outermost islands off the southwest English coast. Within minutes it sank. Moments later three other ship pierced their hulls on the same rocks..." (from the first line) This dramatic picture-book biography tells the story of John Harrison, an obscure 18th-century clock maker who envisioned a way to measure longitude by mapping the heavens and developed a seafaring clock. A Junior Library Guild Selection. Full color.
Annotation:
After four ships sank in one awful night during a storm in 1707, a desperate British government offered a reward of 20,000 pounds sterling ($12 million in today's money) to anyone who could figure out how to calculate east-west longitude for seagoing vessels. All sorts of lunatic notions were submitted, but it was an obscure carpenter and clockmaker named John Harrison who eventually devised a timepiece that could conduct the measurements, although it took him 35 years and he was denied the prize in the end. Harrison's life is a superb example of persistence and daring in the face of long odds, and the story is ideal for reading aloud. Kevin Hawkes's moody, darkly lit color paintings glow on every page. A 2004 American Library Association Notable Children's Book, a National Science Teacher's Association Outstanding Trade Book for Children, one of the School Library Journal Best Books of the Year, a Booklist Editor's Choice, and a Junior Library Guild Selection.
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