Căpitan la cincisprezece ani

Dick Sand is fifteen. He works as a ship's boy on the schooner Pilgrim. The ship is about to sail from Auckland to San Francisco. Dick wants only one thing in life: to be a sailor.

His wish comes true sooner than he hoped, and in a hard way. Captain Hull leaves Dick in charge of the ship. Then he and the crew row out to hunt a whale. None of them come back. So the boy must now act as captain.

A plain trip turns into an adventure. The cook, Negoro, is a traitor. He steers the ship off course, and it runs aground in Africa. Negoro claims they have reached South America. But one passenger studies insects. From the species he finds, he sees that they are in Angola. The slave trade thrives there. Negoro's friends plan to enslave five Black men. The Pilgrim had rescued these men early in the voyage.

This is an adventure novel and a coming-of-age story. It draws partly on the author's own life and is partly made up. Through the plot, Verne takes on slavery and condemns it. The book suits young readers, and stores list it as a children's title.

Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a French writer. He is known for adventure novels built on scientific ideas. With the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel, he wrote the Voyages extraordinaires, a series of more than sixty novels. This novel first came out in 1878. This edition is a Romanian translation. Libris names Etelka Parasca alongside Verne.