Captain Murdock is aided by his wife and children as he commands a clipper ship from New York to San Francisco. This book details passage to the California gold fields, in 1850, via the treacherous Cape Horn. Absorbing adventure shown in gray and beige with a touch of turquoise.

This is one of the books for kids that kids will pick it up because the cover looks cool but then totally lose interest in it once they start reading it. This is because as much as it tries it just doesn't read like a story. It's one of those..."and then this happens"..."and then this happens"....etc.

The Story is about a Clipper ship called "The Rainbird". This clipper ship leaves port in New York and travels around Cape Horn in South America, bound for San Francisco. And it highlights some of the adventures that happens to Captain and crew along the way.

It tries and fails miserably at setting up some suspense when the Captain got sick. I mean, if the Captain wasn't around to navigate the ship, who was? It gives little interesting facts like back in the day there were entire families that lived aboard a ship. That was their home. This book even had one sentence that brushed against the idea of Cannibalism...but quickly left it hanging.

I don't want to turn you off too badly on this book but if you are sensitive to your young reader being influenced into any type of religion, there is a lot of prayer going on in this very short story.

The print and the spacing is done very well for the young reader who is starting to learn how to read on their own. The pictures that come with the story are boring and show minimal relevance to what is actually happening in the story.

Like I said earlier, if you are looking to pick a book to do a book report on...this is your book. If you are looking for an interesting story that keeps you captivated...my answer to this is meh... ( )

"Clipper Ship" by Thomas P. Lewis describes the voyage of the Rainbird, a fictional ship sailing to California during the Gold Rush, and the captain's family who made its home on the vessel. The author based his book on the lives of actual women who went to sea with their husbands during this era. In "Clipper Ship", Captain Murdock gets sick with "brain fever" and his wife needs to sail the ship. The author added good historical descriptions about what cargo this type of ship would be carrying and the harbors where the ship would have stopped for fresh food and water. However, the detail about who Lewis calls a "Native" giving someone a human head as a sign of friendship is not only farfetched, it makes Pacific Islanders seem savage. Also, though it's an "I Can Read Book", some of the nautical terms are hard for even the most proficient reader to understand: "Reef the topsails", "Furl the courses", "Studding sails on the lardboard booms" etc. There are realistic drawings by illustrator Joan Sandin to accompany this book. ( )