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 In the Heart of the Sea: the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick.
For older teen & adult readers
Even though it is little remembered today, the sinking of the whaleship Essex by an enraged sperm whale was one of the most well-known marine disasters of the nineteenth century. Nearly every child in America read about it in school. It was the event that inspired the climactic scene in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. But the point at which Melville’s book ends – the sinking of the ship – was merely the starting point for the story of the real-life Essex disaster. Not only does In the Heart of the Sea recount the the survival of only a handful of the crew, it speaks to the issues of race, class, leadership and man’s relationship to nature.
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