Great-aunt Alice Rumphius was once a little girl who loved the sea, longed to visit faraway places, and wished to do something to make the world more beautiful--and she does all those things, the last being the most difficult of all.
As the only passenger, and the only female, on a transatlantic voyage in 1832, thirteen-year-old Charlotte finds herself caught between a murderous captain and a mutinous crew.
On the first day of spring, a young New Yorker, with her mother and aunts, takes the train to the ocean to make an offering of flowers and fruit to Mama Ocean, thanking her for her magnificence, and welcoming the new year.
