Watermark Books and Cafe

We're so proud to be hosting a second book launch for Wichitan Clare Vanderpool. You'll remember that her first book, Moon Over Manifest, won the Newbery Award in 2011. She'll be here for her second young adult novel, Navigating Early. At the end of World War II, Jack Baker, a landlocked Kansas boy, is suddenly uprooted after his mother's death and placed in a boy's boarding school in Maine. There, Jack encounters Early Auden, the strangest of boys, who reads the number pi as a story and collects clippings about the sightings of a great black bear in the nearby mountains. Newcomer Jack feels lost yet can't help being drawn to Early, who won't believe what everyone accepts to be the truth about the Great Appalachian Bear, Timber Rattlesnakes, and the legendary school hero known as The Fish, who never returned from the war. When the boys find themselves unexpectedly alone at school, they embark on a quest on the Appalachian Trail in search of the great black bear. But what they are searching for is sometimes different from what they find. They will meet truly strange characters, each of whom figures into the pi story Early weaves as they travel, while discovering things they never realized about themselves and others in their lives. Join us for the reading and signing at 7:00 p.m. (The 6:00 p.m. Dinner + event is sold out.)