With illustrations featuring a wide variety of materials, including string, coins, glitter, paint, and fabric, this enchanting modern-day fairy tale follows two young sisters as they travel through a fantasy world in a crystal boat accompanied by a whale with a polka-dot tail. Along the journey, the girls view a world quite the opposite of what they know: where no belly is hungry and no soul is poor, where no baby cries and nothing living dies. However, the girls eventually realize that all that glitters is not gold and that no life can be perfect.