Published by Candlewick
Summary: While vacationing with his grandmother at her cottage near the beach, Thomas becomes entranced with sea glass. He uses his grandfather’s old magnifying glass to study his beach finds, and his grandmother tells him each piece tells a story. Some of those stories come to life in Thomas’s dreams at night, shown in black and white, where he sees a woman christening a ship with a bottle, and a Mason jar being smashed in a shipwreck. The summer finally comes to an end, and Thomas is heartbroken when he accidentally breaks the magnifying glass on the ferry ride home. Fast forward to another summer at the beach. This time a girl named Annie is staying at the beach, and she, too, is a collector. When she finds a cloudy white piece of sea glass, she shows it to her Papaw Tom. It feels strangely familiar to him, and he tells her every piece of sea glass has a story. That night Annie dreams about a young boy named Thomas peering through a magnifying glass on the beach. 32 pages; ages 4-8.
Pros: A perfect summer story; bring along your sea glass collection to share at story hour, and get the kids imagining where it all came from. The illustrations of both the present and the past add plenty of realistic detail to the story.
Cons: What grandfather would willingly go by the name of Papaw Tom?
