Historical Fiction

by Fred Koehler

When an accident on the water leaves his father unable to fish, Jim Hobbins begins taking out the family skiff after school to keep the business afloat. A secret fishing spot and the promise of high-dollar snapper lure the boy on a nighttime adventure 20 miles offshore. But instead of a monster haul, Jim gets lost in the night and finds himself adrift in the Gulf. Ever hopeful, the boy invents a survival school at sea and assigns himself projects to overcome his lack of food, water, and shelter. Most of his projects fail, but he manages to stay alive. Soon enough, he’ll have to face even harder challenges including storms, sharks, and a mysterious presence he imagines on a ghostly vessel. Attacked by jellyfish, tangled in underwater nets, and with his skiff beginning to slip beneath the waves, Jim refuses to give up. But how long can he hold out when nature itself seems determined to keep him from ever making it home?

by Robert Louis Stevenson

TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER\ \ If sailor tales to sailor tunes,\ Storm and adventure, heat and cold,\ If schooners, islands, and maroons,\ And buccaneers, and buried gold,\ And all the old romance, retold\ Exactly in the ancient way,\ Can please, as me they pleased of old,\ The wiser youngsters of today:\ \ --So be it, and fall on! If not,\ If studious youth no longer crave,\ His ancient appetites forgot,\ Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave,\ Or Cooper of the wood and wave:\ So be it, also! And may I\ And all my pirates share the grave\ Where these and their creations lie!