Oscar Martin was fourteen when he vanished from his Iowa farmhouse home. His sister said that Oscar rowed out to sea; but there are no oceans in Iowa - so how was that possible? Nearly a century later, Lucy Martin and her parents move to that same farmhouse, where her father mysteriously disappears. When she finds the mystical "Book of Story Beginnings", Oscar reappears and together they venture into a fantasy world in search of Lucy's father - and a happy ending.