Sea Legs

Set sail for adventure! Dive in to this hilarious and moving middle grade graphic memoir about friendship, growing up, and life at sea.

Janey’s family is about to set sail for the adventure of a lifetime! The only problem? Janey must leave her school, her life, her best friend, the entire country behind for new adventures -- coral reefs, colorful markets, and new cultures. Life at sea is exhilarating, but there’s a major downside: when you’re raising anchor every few days with sights on a new harbor, it’s almost impossible to make new friends.

Finally, Janey meets the cool and aloof Astrid -- a fellow boat kid who’s equally starved for friendship. But Astrid can be a challenging friend to navigate, and beyond that, hurricane season has only just begun . . . .

At turns laugh-out-loud hilarious and heartbreakingly poignant, this stunning middle grade graphic memoir charts both the turbulence and joys of growing up.

Jules Bakes moved aboard the Merimaid - a forty two foot schooner built by her parents - at seven years old, and spent her childhood traveling the US eastern seaboard and Caribbean, largely homeschooled. These days she works in Fellowships at Yale University and is a member of New Haven’s Never-Ending Books collective. Having participated in a few years of in-person and remote programming at SPX, she’s also a recurring guest on the Enemies of the State comics podcast, and serves on the Board of Directors for Fieldmouse Press. She lives in Hamden, Connecticut with her husband and two deranged dogs. This is her first novel.

Niki Smith’s work is joyously queer, and she is the author of the Lambda Literary Award-nominated graphic novels The Deep & Dark Blue and Crossplay. Niki’s most recent solo book, The Golden Hour, was a Kirkus, SLJ, and NYPL Best Book of 2021. When she’s not making graphic novels, she’s collecting embroidery hoops and mini-comics and learning to draw boats. Niki now lives in Munich, Germany with her wife and two bilingual cats.