Disobeying their elders, Little Scallop and her mermaid friends Aqua and Surf go out past the reef in search of beautiful pearls. Unfortunately, Surf is captured by sailors on The Carnivale, a sideshow ship. To the rescue come James of the lost boys and some dolphin friends who combine to free the mermaid moments before the pirates would have arrived, if it weren’t for the timely appearance of the giant crocodile still chasing Captain Hook. This Never Land adventure, first of a series for younger readers by the authors of the bestselling Peter and the Starcatchers (2004), lacks much more than Peter Pan. The stock characters have a completely predictable adventure in a stereotyped setting. The pirate subplot is unconvincing and unnecessary. Although the book is relatively short, the vocabulary and sentence structure are not noticeably easier than those for older readers and will be challenging for the intended audience. Older reluctant readers, however, may find the familiarity reassuring and the nonstop action an incentive to finishing. (Fiction. 9-12)
