I Sailed with Magellan
by Claudia Allen, Stuart Dybek

THE STORY: Growing up on Chicago's Southside in the 1950s and '60s, Perry is the oldest son of a working-class Polish family.

His frugal father, Sir, works in a factory and collects car parts off the street to sell in his spare time.

Perry's younger brother, Mick, is a constant nuisance, and their mother, Moms, somehow manages to hold the house together.

Perry's adventures take him from adolescence to young adulthood: dodging high-speed traffic with his father; stealing orchids from the Northside in order to finance a trip to Mexico; and singing in neighborhood bars at the behest of his Uncle Lefty, a washed-up ex-musician and veteran of the Korean War.

A dreamer, Perry inherits his restless qualities from Lefty, whose death marks the end of Perry's childhood.

A wide-ranging coming-of-age story, I SAILED WITH MAGELLAN celebrates the colorful, hardscrabble life that inspires a boy to embark on his own voyage of discovery.