Humphrey's Long Journey Away From the Sea, Book One: Tales of Endangered Lives, is a rhymed verse novel that follows Humphrey, a humpback whale, who gets lost in the Sacramento River Delta. There, he meets a raccoon, a beaver, a heron, a frog, and a dog, all of whom tells stories of their endangered lives at the hands of a single species. Redolent with humor, a lot of it dark, the end prepares us for Humphrey's encounters with humans, the subject of Book Two: The Endangering Species.