A Sailor Returns
He's the kind of grandfather that any 11-year-old would love to have: a  salty old scalawag who's sailed the Seven Seas, chock-full of tales about shark  attacks, press gangs, Chinese "tat parlors," and how the boys off Sumatra wear  tiger-tooth amulets on the sheaths of their fighting knives. (Realize, of  course, that we're talking about 1914 here.)Evan Bryant is just such an 11-year-old. And although he didn't even think he  had a grandpa (his mom's dad was thought to have been lost at sea when she was  only 3), a surprise letter arrives from him--one Thomas "Chips" Pentreath,  formerly of Mouzel, England, now living in an old sailors' home in Brooklyn-- saying that he'd like to visit his long-lost daughter. Evan's mom and dad are  both uneasy about reuniting with this mysterious relative, especially with such  an impressionable young son about. But even they don't realize that they might  have reason to be leery--and they won't discover the old man's guilty secret  until after he arrives.This exciting, fun, and downright convincing period tale about family,  friendship, and honesty from veteran children's author Theodore Taylor is sure  to make many a kid wish they'd be shanghaied. (Ages 9 to 12)--Paul  Hughes