Determined to build "the biggest, fanciest, most excellent sandcastle" to impress her sister, Jules is foiled again and again by the ocean.

"In his day Walter Wellman (1858-1934) was one of America's most famous men. To his contemporaries, he seemed like a character from a Jules Verne novel. He led five expeditions in search of the North Pole, two by dogsled and three by dirigible airship, and in 1910 made the first attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean by air--which the self-styled expert on aerial warfare saw as a mission of world peace. He endured hardships, cheated death on more than...