When questioned about the wreck of a small sailboat found on the edge of a high cliff, an old sailor tells a strange tale of a proud young boy who wanted to be the world's greatest sailor; he also tells of a mysterious storm that carried the boy and his boat to a place where boats glide like seagulls high above the water. Full color paintings emphasize imaginative uses of forms within space. Honor Book, CCBC Caldecott Straw Vote. (Ages 4-11)

In illustrations so vivid one can feel the whisper of wind and hear the flutter of canvas, depart this world for another to entertain the marvelous possibility of dreams.

Beloved Caldecott-winning illustrator Chris Van Allsburg invites readers to peer over the edge of a cliff to consider the wreck of a small sailboat. Had a churning sea carried the Zephyr up in a storm? Could waves ever have been so impossibly high? And what of the boy who had believed—dared to chase the wind—no matter where it lead?

The winds have shifted once again, and you’re invited to hear the story of the boy and his obsession to become the world’s greatest sailor and a storm that carried them to a place where boats sail on the wind, instead of on the water.

Told in spare text and haunting, full-color pastels, Chris Van Allsburg’s spectral sailboats take impossible flight.