The Sandman: His Sea Stories

These are the stories a father invented to send his little boy off to sleep, and you can feel that cozy purpose in every page. The brig Industry sails from a small coastal town, captained by the weathered Solomon, with two young boys Jacob and Sol aboard for the voyage of their lives. They hunt whales, outrun storms, trade with strange merchants in foreign ports, and learn the hard lessons of the sea: patience, courage, and the particular loneliness of watching land disappear over the horizon. Hopkins writes with the unhurried rhythm of a man telling tales by firelight, pausing to explain how the ropes are coiled or what the different sails are called, never rushing the story toward some grand conclusion. The result is a book that smells of salt air and old wood, that captures what it felt like to be a child imagining the vast and terrifying world beyond the harbor. It is gentle enough for a five-year-old but rich enough to reward a patient adult reader who remembers what it was like to believe that the ocean held everything.