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Ahab and the White Whale
  • Published: 10 June 2026
  • ISBN: 9798896230052
  • Imprint: NY Review Childrens
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 40
  • RRP: $45.00

Ahab and the White Whale

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Get the story of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick from the weird-but-lovable villain, Captain Ahab, in this silly and thrilling kids picture book for ages 5-9!

Ahab’s beautifully illustrated, off-kilter adventure on the high seas offers an important lesson on obsession and staying true to yourself.

Get the story of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick from the weird-but-lovable villain, Captain Ahab, in this silly and thrilling kids picture book for ages 5-9!

Ahab’s beautifully illustrated, off-kilter adventure on the high seas offers an important lesson on obsession and staying true to yourself.

On the island of Nantucket lives the greatest whaling captain of all time. Call him Ahab. He has long searched for the great white whale known as Moby Dick. Whenever Ahab heard any news of the whale, he rushed off to sea in his ship the Pequod. He climbed mountains, scaled sunken wrecks, crossed oceans without any luck. He wasted whole days shut up in his cabin. He traveled to the ends of the earth, but still the whale was not to be found. Ahab spent so much time on the hunt that he even forgot what he was looking for! The sea is a mystery, that much he can say for sure.

In this exquisitely illustrated story inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Manuel Marsol turns Captain Ahab into a sympathetic, driven goofball with valuable lessons to impart about life, leviathans, and not letting our goals obscure the world right in front of our eyes.
  • Published: 10 June 2026
  • ISBN: 9798896230052
  • Imprint: NY Review Childrens
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 40
  • RRP: $45.00
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Praise for Ahab and the White Whale

“'Call me Ahab.' With that declarative opening (and callback), Marsol establishes a voice both grand and fragile. The first-person narration is spare, rhythmic, and incantatory...Marsol’s illustrations deepen the psychological landscape...A visually arresting, linguistically restrained meditation on obsession that rewards careful readers and invites discussion of voice, perspective, and the slippery nature of truth." —School Library Journal

"In this lush, meditative retelling of Moby-Dick, Marsol evokes a markedly different vibe than the original, rendering Captain Ahab as more dreamer than diabolical. Ahab himself narrates via spare, conversational text that takes a reckoning tone... This contemplative and elliptical take may not cast a wide net, but it’s still a whale of a tale—one in which obsession opens Ahab to wonder rather than sealing his fate." —Publishers Weekly