Antarctica (17 page)
Authors: Peter Lerangis
wheelhouse—
an enclosed area from which a ship is controlled when under way
windward—
the side exposed to the wind (opposite of
leeward)
yardarm
—the spar that supports the top edge of a square sail
young ice—
brittle, newly formed sea ice, one or two feet thick
Alexander, Caroline. Endurance: Shackleton’s
Legendary Antarctic Expedition.
Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. Excellent reproductions of Antarctic photos taken by master polar photographer Frank Hurley.
Armstrong, Jennifer.
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: Shackleton’s Amazing Voyage.
Crown Publishers, 1998.
Bickel, Leonard.
Mawson’s Will.
Avon Books, 1977. Thrilling survival story; Douglas Mawson walked 320 miles across Antarctica after a companion and all his dogs and equipment fell into a crevasse.
Cherry-Garrard, Apsley.
The Worst Journey in the World.
Carroll & Graf, 1989. Robert Falcon Scott’s fatal voyage to the South Pole.
Huntford, Roland.
Scott & Amundsen.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980. The race between Scott and Amundsen for the South Pole, with photos and maps.
Lansing, Alfred.
Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage.
Carroll & Graf, 1986. Thrilling, vivid, true story of the sinking of Shackleton’s ship and the uncanny survival and rescue of all his men.
Maloney, Elbert S.
Chapman Piloting.
Hearst (various ed.). Good book for basic sailing information.
Shackleton, Ernest.
South.
Carroll &.Graf, 1998. A memoir of the voyage of the
Endurance
by its legendary leader. Full of interesting details.
Worsley, F. A.
Shackleton’s Boat Journey.
W.W. Norton & Company, 1977. Written by the captain of the
Endurance,
an account of what many call the greatest boat journey in the world, by Shackleton, Worsley, and four other men, across the Drake Passage on a modified 22-foot lifeboat.
www.ista.co.uk.com
. Diagrams and terminology for various sailing ships and rigs.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton
. An excellent web documentary of Shackleton’s fabled trans-antarctic voyage, contemporary adventures, and lots of good general information about Antarctica. Video clips.
www.terraquest.com/antarctica/index.html
. An excellent and exciting introduction to Antarctica with good images.
www.theice.org
. Facts and figures about Antarctica.
I
BEGAN RESEARCHING THIS
book while waiting long hours to be selected as a juror, so my first thanks go to the New York City criminal court system. Anne Fadiman, my good friend and an avid Antarctic buff, provided great enthusiasm and much research material from her amazing personal library. The real Peter Mansfield, whom I’ve had the good fortune of knowing for twenty-five years, helped enormously with nautical terminology. I thank the real Larry Walden for his patient tutelage during several summer afternoons sailing on Casco Bay. And my mother, Mary Lerangis, who sent me to Greek school when I was a kid and shouldn’t have had to correct all my Greek language mistakes, nevertheless did so with joy.
Efharisto, s’aghapo.
Peter Lerangis (b. 1955) is a bestselling author of young adult fiction; his novels have sold more than four million copies worldwide. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lerangis began writing in elementary school, inventing stories during math class—after finishing the problems, he claims. His first piece of published writing was an anonymous humor article for the April Fools’ Day edition of his high school newspaper. Seeing the other students laughing in the corridors as they read it, planted the idea in his head that he could be a writer. After high school he attended Harvard University, where he majored in biochemistry and sang in an a cappella group, the Harvard Krokodiloes. Intending to go on to law school, Lerangis took a job as a paralegal post-graduation. But after a summer job as a singing waiter, he changed his path and became a musical theater actor.
Lerangis found theatrical work on Broadway, appearing in
They’re Playing Our
Song, and he toured the country in such shows as
Cabaret
,
West Side Story
, and
Fiddler on the Roof
, acting alongside theatrical greats such as Jack Lemmon, John Lithgow, Jane Powell, John Raitt, and Victor Garber. During these years, Lerangis met his future wife, Tina deVaron, and began editing fiction, a job that would eventually lead him to writing novels of his own.
Lerangis got his start writing novelizations under the penname A. L. Singer, as well as installments of long-running series, such as the Hardy Boys and the Baby-sitters Club. He eventually began writing under his own name with 1994’s
The Yearbook
and
Driver’s Dead
, two high-school horror novels that are part of the Point Horror series of young-adult thrillers.
In 1998, Lerangis debuted Watchers, a six-novel sci-fi series, which won Children’s Choice and Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers awards. The first book in the Abracadabra series,
Poof! Rabbits Everywhere
(2002), introduced Max, an aspiring magician who struggles to keep a lid on the supernatural happenings at his school. Lerangis followed that eight-book series with the immensely popular Spy X novels, about a pair of twins drawn into international espionage.
The stand-alone novel
Smiler’s Bones
(2005), based on the true story of an Eskimo brought to New York City in 1897, won critical acclaim and a number of awards. Most recently, Lerangis has collaborated with a group of high-profile children’s authors on Scholastic’s the 39 Clues, a sprawling ten-novel adventure series.
At times, Lerangis’s life has been as thrilling as one of his stories. He has run a marathon, rock-climbed during an earthquake, gone on-stage as a last-minute replacement for Broadway legend Alan Jay Lerner, and visited Russia as part of a literary delegation that included First Lady Laura Bush. He lives with his family in New York City, not far from Central Park.
In an apartment in Brooklyn, shortly after giving birth, Mary Lerangis urges her first-born son to become a writer.
In Prospect Park, Nicholas Lerangis entertains a son so obsessed with books that, by sixteen months, he had yet to learn to walk.
Lerangis, stylish even at four years old.
Lerangis (in back) with his younger sister and brother. He promised them that if they learned to play well enough, the little man on the piano would start to dance. . . . They are still practicing.
To this day, Lerangis refuses to admit that this early work was created during sixth-grade math class.
Lerangis as a freshman at Freeport High School in 1970. Here, he shows off his writing style and his mustache, both of which were to develop quite a bit in the future.
Lerangis (standing, second from left) at the Charles River with his a cappella singing group, the Harvard Krokodiloes. The group still performs to this day.