Sir Ernest Shackleton

by Linda Davis

Most explorers are famous for their successes and triumphs, but Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton never met his ultimate goal of crossing the Antarctic continent. Instead, he is best known for an expedition that took a horrible turn for the worse. In January 1915, as Shackleton and his crew of 27 men sailed the Endurance through the pack ice of the Weddell Sea, the temperature suddenly plummeted. The slushy water surrounding the ship froze into a solid block of ice, trapping Endurance in the frozen sea. Slowly, the pressure from the moving ice floes crushed Endurance and pulled it down to a watery grave, marooning the men hundreds of miles from land. In an astonishing tale of survival, Shackleton led his men through more than 850 miles of the South Atlantic's treacherous seas. Never giving up hope for rescue and overcoming the worst of obstacles, he managed to miraculously save all 27 of his men.

143 pages, Library Binding

First published August 1, 2009

Reviews

[Jennie Machines · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a nice introduction to Ernest Shackleton. However, from a librarian standpoint, this was not a very well written book. The author was not very object and would often criticize decisions that were made with comments such as "He should have listened to ___". I could chuckle away at these little comments as the book was pretty enough, with pictures and extra information rather than a tome of 400 pages of pure text.