The Voyage of the Frog by Gary Paulsen

This was a good book. Not for little kids but 12 and up could handle it. The FROG is a sailboat. The story is about a boy named David. The sailboat belongs to his uncle. His uncle dies and his last request was that the David scatter his ashes out to sea where you can see no land. Also he leaves the sailboat to the boy.
Well, David has a wild adventure after being surprised by a storm. He survives and keeps his head. He is hungry and thirsty but eventually starts on his way back to the cost of CA. He gets to see beautiful wondrous things in the Ocean, whales, dolphins, glow fish...
He also has a lot of time to think about his uncles death and come to terms with the whole sad thing. They had been really good friends and he misses him so much.
This was a good WHOLE BOOK.

I also read a funny book right before this called Molly McGinty Has A Really Good Day. Also by Paulsen. This book was just silly. That is all I can say.

Here is a website that has all of Gary Paulsen's books.
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/garypaulsen/library/