A delightful, poignant, at times sad yet overall positive story of a boy and his mentor, a retired sea captain. The relationship creates an adventure when the opportunity to convert a small rowboat into a sailboat presents itself to this creative team. The life lessons learned in this nautical tale are significant and couldn't be more appropriate to the challenges we face in the new millennium.

Sailing Through Life
By Paul E. Feld
PES, Inc. (2005)
Reviewed by Christina Smith for Reader Views (3/06)

This book was one of the best books that I have read so far this year! The mix of story and teaching was great. In “Sailing Through Life,” we get to meet Paul, an eight year old who has dealt with nothing but abuse in his life and Captain Armbruster, a man who has lived his life for the sea. Neither knew that a chance meeting would end up changing both of their lives. We see how Captain, as Paul calls him, shows Paul how to become a responsible adult, despite what is going on at home. He shows him what he needs to do in order to not only keep his rowboat upright, but also how to use these lessons in his everyday life.

Throughout the book, we learn how to write out reasons for why we are working on something. By doing this, it gives us more incentive to push harder to obtain what we are working on. We also learn that we cannot just go into life not knowing anything. We must study and learn all we can about the life that we want to lead. Paul was taught how to do this by going to the library, learning how to sail, learning how to run his newspaper business, studying harder for school, learning who his real father was and finally becoming a man.

I would recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn how to figure out their life or to someone who just wants a great story to read. Mr. Feld did a wonderful job writing this book.  It makes you learn without thinking that you were really learning, like some books do.