By the age of fourteen, Barbara Newhall Follett had published two books with Alfred A. Knopf: 1927's enchanting The House Without Windows and Eepersip's Life There and 1928's The Voyage of the Norman D., the account of her journey from New Haven to Nova Scotia as "cabin boy" on a lumber schooner. Both books received rave reviews.

But that same year Barbara's life turned upside down when her father left his family for a younger woman. With no income, Barbara and her mother went to sea with their typewriters, hoping to earn a living by writing about their adventures....