Save The Story (Dave Eggers) Books in Order

Save the Story is a collaborative series that invites contemporary authors to retell classic tales in clear, modern language for children and families. Instead of simply shortening the originals, the books choose a fresh narrator and voice, pair the new text with bold illustration, and include a brief afterword about where the story came from in the first place.

Dave Eggers’s contribution is The Story of Captain Nemo, a reimagining of Jules Verne’s undersea adventure Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Here the voyage is seen through the eyes of Consuelo, a fourteen year old girl who boards a ship with her uncle, the oceanographer Professor Aronnax, to hunt a sea monster that has been ramming ships and terrifying sailors.

When Consuelo and the crew finally track down the monster, they discover that it is in fact a long, sleek submarine commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo. Eggers keeps the giant squids, storms, and shipwrecks that young readers love while letting Consuelo puzzle over Nemo’s isolation, his anger at the nations of the surface, and the strange freedom of a life lived entirely underwater.

Like the other Save the Story volumes, the book is designed to work on two levels at once. Younger listeners can enjoy the suspense of boarding an unknown vessel and sailing through coral forests and deep trenches. Older kids and adults will notice the questions it raises about exile, justice, scientific curiosity, and whether any one person can ever fully escape the world’s conflicts.

Across the full series, different writers tackle Greek tragedy, myth, and landmark novels in the same spirit, always with a strong guiding voice and a sense of play. On this page you will find Eggers’s Nemo retelling placed within that broader project, along with help on where it fits in a young reader’s journey from picture books toward the longer classics that inspired it.