NAMAZZI

A young mermaid must rescue her shattered home in author/illustrator O’Neduncan’s picture book.

Namazzi awakens from a mysterious sleeping curse that caused many of her people to drift away from the underwater kingdom of Eno. Now it’s time to return, and with her friend Spotty, a whale shark, she does; along the way, she reflects on how she was unwilling to marry and have children, as her parents wished. When the friends arrive in Eno, the city is in ruins. She meets a merman named Umi, who was also cursed, and finds herself investigating a mysterious gang of “sorcemers” who may be behind the recent events. “I must take action!” Namazzi declares. This illustrated book is action-packed, though often O’Neduncan pauses the story so that songs that Namazzi writes and sings take center stage. The author also makes the curious choice to use different colors for certain words throughout the text, but there is no clear reasoning behind it, and it decreases legibility. Similarly confusing is Namazzi’s fate at the end of the story, which seems to contradict her stated values. The book’s full-color cartoon illustrations, which feature characters with a range of brown skin tones, have a childlike style; captions add an extra element of fun, prompting readers to find fish, merfolk, or other details.

A well-illustrated story hampered by uneven execution.