I read a book when I was younger, and I really liked it, but I can’t remember the title. Here’s what I do remember:
–The main (and only) character is a boy of, I’d guess around ten or fifteen years old.
–I’m pretty sure it takes place quite a bit in the past, as in, before motorized transportation.
–Some kind of ship has an accident, in a cold region, and the boy is either the only survivor, or the only one who got left behind or something like that.
–The ship is wrecked upside-down on ice, with no hopes of becoming functional again.
–The boy goes into the captain’s quarters, shores up the floor (which has now become the ceiling) with found objects, and does the best he can to turn this into a sort of home.
–He lives on whale blubber (is it a whaling ship?) and worries about scurvy.
–Several times in the book, he mentions drinking the captain’s rum, because it helps him stay warm.
–The shipwreck is positioned in such a way that he can freely walk to and from it. He often leaves the ship and walks around, presumably to see if he can find help or other materials to survive on.