Sara Wheeler is a biographer of heroic explorers, having written not only Terra Incognita, but Cherry (a biography of Antarctic explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard) and Too Close To The Sun (a biography of Denys Finch Hatton, the guy played by Robert Redford in Out of Africa). But I digress. Here’s the quote:

Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen and Douglas Mawson were the heroes of a generation of children who pored over images of bergs towering above wooden ships, and men and dogs straining in front of sledges.

Some how I was recalling the ship Endurance as Endeavour. On the other hand, that would have been very strange to have one of the words in clue G be the answer for clue H. It took me a little while to realize Endeavour was wrong. Furthermore, all the clues about Antarctica, and letter A in Adios for clue Y got me thinking that the last word in the title might be Antarctica, and I was wrong about that as well. In a similar way, I was recalling Shackleford instead of Shackleton. Low intelligence all around.

I want my children to read books. They want to play video games. They are fully persuaded that the interactivity of video games is an unqualified improvement over the use of one’s imagination in reading. I want them to think Robert Heinlein is the mighty Colossus of storytelling. They think James Cameron is, and they’re pretty stubborn about it. But a still, small voice tells me to not be too attached to any particular technology, any particular era of heroes, or to heroes of any particular country. Heroes come in all shapes, sizes and colors, and there are heroes in every age and every country.

Technorati: Acrostic, Emily Cox, Henry Rathvon, Sara Wheeler, Terra Incognita