A calm bedtime story for a mind that will not shut off at night, about a dune that gives way underfoot and the room beneath it. Prince Freddie falls through the ceiling of a library holding everything the sea has ever carried to this shore, catalogued on hand-lettered cards by Francisco, an octopus in spectacles with eight arms all doing something useful. There are bottles and charts and a great many boots. There is a card for a pearl that is no longer there. A slow, absorbing story about things being kept, things being only remembered, and how good it feels when someone else is doing the sorting.

Prince Freddie is a small dog in a flat gold crown who lives in a sleepy village on the Spanish coast, where the days are warm, the sea is always close, and nothing is ever in a hurry. These are unhurried sleep stories, written to quiet an anxious ...