Carolyn Mott Ford (Children's Literature)
This is a story of persistence. John Harrison was a man who never gave up his dream despite problems, setbacks and the failure of others to take him seriously. In 1714 the British Parliament passed the Longitude Act, offering a prize of 20,000 pounds sterling for a workable way to measure longitude. Many British ships were sinking because, although sailors could measure latitude, the north-south position, they had no means to measure longitude, the east-west position and could not know their ship's true location. The entries ranged from the scientific to the ridiculous, but a young carpenter combined his working experience with his independent study of mathematics and the laws of motion to solve the problem. John Harrison fashioned a sea clock, known as H1. Harrison was accorded little respect because of his lack of education, but he continued to improve the sea clock. His fifth model, H5, met the requirements, but the prize money was not given to the now seventy-nine-year old John Harrison until his son William presented the case to King George III. The Longitude Prize was never officially awarded but any reader of this story will be aware that John Harrison was a winner. He never gave up, he accomplished what he set out to do and he made voyages safer for all seafarers. 2003, Melanie Kroupa Books/Farrar Straus and Giroux, $17.00. Ages 8 to 12.

Carolyn Phelan (Booklist, Mar. 1, 2003 (Vol. 99, No. 13))
Executed in an oversize format, which allows plenty of space for Hawkes' dramatic pictures, this tells the story of John Harrison, an eighteenth-century clock maker who solved the problem of tracking longitude in shipboard navigation. The book begins with a shipwreck, dramatizing the fact that the longitude puzzle was not just a matter of academic or economic importance but a life-and-death question for those who sailed the seas. After introducing some of the more absurd solutions proposed for tracking longitude, the discussion turns to young John Harrison, who was 21 when the Longitude Prize was offered by the British Parliament. Lasky shows how, over the next half-century, Harrison worked to design and perfect a timepiece that would earn the prize. Not every child will understand the technical challenge discussed; however, the text makes absorbing reading both for its sidelights on history and for the personal drama portrayed. Harrison emerges as an admirable, if idiosyncratic, individual whose story is well worth telling. Atmospherically lit and richly colored, Hawkes' large-scale paintings are often striking in their overall effects and intriguing in their details. Unexpected elements of humor in both the historical narrative and the illustrations lighten what could have been a dry, weighty treatment in other hands. Teachers looking for books for units on inventors will find this a memorable choice for reading aloud. Category: Books for Middle Readers--Nonfiction. 2003, Farrar/Melanie Kroupa, $17. Gr. 3-5