Staff Picks Blog
The Newbery Honor-winning author of The Underneath has written another special book recommended for grades 4-7. Ten-year-old Keeper believes in magic, wishes and mermaids. Living with her guardian, Signe, in a small town off the Gulf coast of Texas, she has her dog BD (Best Dog) and a seagull named Captain for company, a job waxing surfboards for Dogie who stutters and plays the ukulele and wants to marry Signe, and an old neighbor, Mr. Beauchamp, who carves merfolk and remembers his youth with sad regret. The characters are wonderfully portrayed and the sense of a close community is felt. When everything goes wrong one day for stubborn Keeper, she sets out on Dogie’s row boat in the middle of the night to find her mother, Meggie Marie, who disappeared when Keeper was three and who Keeper believes is out in the Gulf of Mexico living as a mermaid. She will tell Meggie Marie about her awful day and her mother will make everything right. However, the night of the blue moon when the merfolk come out, is full of danger and realizations for Keeper. Wishes, magic and fantasy are all part of the story that is woven from various points of view as in Appelt’s previous novel. The few pencil illustrations by August Hall are lovely and evocative of the characters and coastal setting. Readers will be enchanted with this unique keeper of a story.
