When Ann Combs, her husband Joe and their six children set about re-building a large dilapidated house on Bainbridge Island, their only prior experience in construction was building a toy chest from an instruction kit.

In this classic chronicle of island life, youll meet surgeons who look like longshoreman, longshoremen who play Mozart concertos, old Mr. Torgeson, who raises chickens so fat they break their legs leaping off their perches, and Grandma Harriott, who carves historical scenes on cubes of butter.

Told with humor and heartwarming candor, this charming account of the pitfalls and...