A young boy Jack loves building sandcastles at the beach but hates that the rising tide ruins them each evening. He wishes that his latest creation were a real castle and he were the king of it. That night, his wish appears to become true, but Jack finds that being the king of a castle doesn't mean bliss.

This rather fantastical book reminds me of various fairytale retellings I read as a child (most notably, the magical story and the illustrative style combined are reminiscent of my childhood copy of The Twelve Dancing Princesses). As I've noted here before, fairytales are far from my favorite genre so a book like this isn't going to become an instant classic in my opinion. This book is also a little more wordy/lengthy than some other picture books -- that fact along with the very imaginative story made me worry that this book would be way over the heads of my toddler class. That may have been true, but the children were absolutely fascinated by it and wanted to hear it multiple times, sitting in rapt attention as they listened to the story. The illustrations are incredibly well rendered and are a notable part of the book, creating a beautiful product. For some unknown reason though, the mermaids are never fully illustrated (only their tails are ever shown), a strange quirk that I found a bit irritating actually.

All in all, this is a book that I think will appeal to a limited audience who really enjoys fantasy, magic, and fairytales. In other words, this is a book for an audience that isn't me. ( )