The Old Tobacco Shop

Five-year-old Freddie longs for adventure, and he finds it inside a dusty little tobacco shop kept by the kindly Mr. Toby Littleback. Warned never to touch the jar shaped like a Chinese head, the boy cannot resist the magic tobacco it holds, and smoking it sweeps him and his friends aboard The Sieve, a leaky ship bound for the Spanish Main. Pirates, stolen treasure, and a mysterious Persian rug merchant who grants each traveler a heart’s desire fill the voyage that follows. Bowen’s 1921 story sits somewhere between a dream and a sea yarn, its whimsy shaded, as one early reviewer put it, with a touch of Dickens. Named a Newbery Honor book, it stays a gentle, oddly haunting fantasy for children who like their make-believe salted with danger.