Polar Explorers: Book recommendations for children
Polar exploration is a wonderful topic to read about with children. There are so many stories of incredible bravery, determination and often survival against the odds. However, children’s books tend to gloss over the uglier side of human nature displayed in the polar regions. If you are interested in exploring this theme with your children, you could look at Lady Franklin and the shunning of John Rae, the story of African-American explorer Matthew Henson, or Amundsen’s treatment of Johansen.
We also have a list of general book recommendations for the polar regions.
If you are in the UK, and are interested discovering more about polar explorers, we have enjoyed visiting the following museums:
- The RRS Discovery in Dundee was the ship used for the British Antarctic exploration mission from 1901 to 1904. Scott commanded this expedition, and Shackleton was a crew member. There is a museum, and you can also explore all over the ship.
- The Scott Polar Museum in Cambridge. This is a lovely wee museum, with lots of interesting artefacts from polar expeditions. You can view the final letters written by Captain Scott and his Pole Party, which were later recovered by their comrades. A very moving experience. Outside the museum, there is a scale replica of the James Caird lifeboat in which Shackleton and five crewmates sailed 800 miles to South Georgia to seek help after the sinking of the Endurance.
- There is a Polar Worlds gallery at the National Maritime Museum in London. I particularly enjoyed the paintings in this gallery, including one of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror during a storm in the Antarctic in 1842.
- Stromness Museum in Orkney has a section devoted to John Rae, a wonderful Orcadian explorer who discovered the fate of the Franklin Expedition, and the missing link in the Northwest Passage.
Now on to the books!
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Picture Books
Ice Trap!
Meredith Hooper and MP Robertson
This is a wonderful book which I would highly recommend. It tells the story of Shackleton’s Endurance expedition, and the audacious rescue mission on one of the ship’s lifeboats to reach the whaling stations of South Georgia. There is a useful map in the front and plenty of colour illustrations. It is a very exciting and inspiring story.
Content warning: there is one brief mention of toes needing to be amputated due to the difficult conditions.
Shackleton’s Journey
William Grill
Another beautiful picture book about Shackleton’s expedition on the Endurance. Compared to Ice Trap, this book has more detailed information on e.g. equipment and ship design, and includes an interesting map of South Georgia. There is also some information about the Ross Sea party, Shackleton’s support mission on the other side of Antarctica. Both books are excellent, and the story is so gripping that it deserves telling twice.
The Lamp, the Ice and the Boat Called Fish
Jacqueline Briggs Martin
This book tells the true story of an exploration expedition up the coast of Alaska in 1913. An Inupiaq family joined the expedition to provide local knowledge and expertise in clothing and hunting. With them came their two children. The boat became trapped in the ice, and after drifting with the ice for several months it eventually sank, leaving the crew and the Inupiaq family camping on the ice. What follows is an amazing survival story, told sensitively for children. We enjoyed learning about Inupiaq culture and language, and the knowledge and skills that enable them to live in wild and remote places.
Tom Crean’s Rabbit
Meredith Hooper and Bert Kitchen
This is a lovely short story about the sailor Tom Crean looking for a nesting place for his rabbit at Christmas time on an Antarctic ship. There isn’t a huge about of information about polar explorers, but it would be a good choice for younger siblings to enjoy.
Books for older children
Race to the Pole
Meredith Hooper
This is a short chapter book covering the various attempts on the South Pole by Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen. It is quite dramatic and fast paced, and gives a good overview of the circumstances leading up to Amundsen and Scott’s race to the pole.
I found the language rather choppy in places, with lots of short sentences. I prefer Hooper’s picture book Ice Trap! which seems to flow better. However, there aren’t many children’s books covering the race to the South Pole, and even fewer that cover the earlier pole attempts, so this is well worth reading.
Captain Scott – A Ladybird Book
L. Garde du Peach
This is a typical Ladybird longer picture book, focussing on the final South Pole expedition. Each full page of text is accompanied by a beautiful colour illustration. The story is gripping, and very moving.
Locked in Ice: Nansen’s Daring Quest for the North Pole
Peter Lourie
We really enjoyed this book. It is adapted from Nansen’s own book Farthest North. We first came across it when reading the Arthur Ransome story Winter Holiday, in which Nansen’s expedition forms the backdrop for the children’s imaginative winter play. I wasn’t sure that we would cope with the whole original book with the ages of my children, but Locked in Ice has been a good compromise. The book follows the progress of the expedition chronologically using Nansen’s diary entries, and makes extensive use of original photographs. It is an extraordinary story of human daring, skill and survival in extreme circumstances.
Exploration into the Polar Regions
David Rootes
This is an information book in the style of the DK Eyewitness series. It covers mankind’s dealings with the polar regions from early history to the present day, including some thoughtful comments on the political and environmental pressures of the modern world. There are several pages about different Arctic people groups, and some discussion of the Viking occupation of Greenland, including a wonderful photograph of the archaeological remains of Viking houses. There are some helpful route maps for different expeditions. Each major exploration expedition typically gets a double page spread, so this book is more of an overview, from which to dive deeper into topics which particularly interest you.
Polar Explorers for Kids
Maxine Snowden
This book provides a good overview of many of the key exploration expeditions. We used it as a spine for a polar history project. It is split into two sections, Arctic and Antarctic, each of which is chronologically arranged. There are plenty of interesting black and white photographs. There are also a number of fun project ideas in the book, and we enjoyed a couple of them, particularly building an igloo out of ice cubes!
This is the most detailed overview of polar exploration for children that I have found. However, sadly I found a number of factual errors in this book, and therefore cannot recommend it unequivocally. I would still use it again myself, but would not rely on it completely for historical accuracy. If you would like more details about these factual errors, I have compiled a list here.
Beyond the Sea of Ice: the Voyages of Henry Hudson
Joan Elizabeth Goodman
This book describes the various voyages of Henry Hudson, seeking either a North-East or a North-West passage. We found this book a little hard to stick with in places. One voyage seemed much like another, and Henry Hudson was not particularly likeable. We were less invested in his success than some of the other explorers! The book deals clearly with the explorers’ encounters with American tribes, which were often bloody and manipulative, including tricking tribal leaders into drunkenness, robbing villages, several bloody battles and chopping off a man’s hand. Eventually Hudson was marooned, and even then most of the mutineers did not survive the journey home. Not a happy book, but helpful if you are wanting to understand this period of exploration!
Scottish Explorers
Antony Kamm
This information book is part of a series by National Museums Scotland. It has short passages on several lesser known explorers, including the Orcadian explorer John Rae, who is a great hero of ours. About one third of the book is devoted to polar exploration. The book feels a bit choppy, because it is trying to cover so many things in a short number of pages.
Buried in Ice: the Mystery of a Lost Arctic Expedition
Owen Beattie and John Geiger
This book comes with a significant content warning as you can see from the front cover. It describes an archaelogical expedition to find out more about the fate of Franklin’s lost expedition, including the exhumation of several crew members, complete with photographs. The picture on the bottom right of the front cover gives a good idea as to what to expect.
The middle section of the book is a semi-fictional account of the voyage from the perspective of two young sailors, one of whom dies. Towards the end of the book there is also a description of archaeological finds supporting the theory that some final survivors resorted to cannibalism.
For those who are interested in the Franklin expedition, this book is a fantastic mine of information, but certainly one for older children, and not for the faint hearted.
A wildcard suggestion
Erebus: The Story of a Ship
Michael Palin
This book is intended for adults rather than children, but we listened to it on audiobook and were absolutely gripped. It tells the story of HMS Erebus, including both her Antarctic expedition and the final fatal search for the Northwest Passage.
