Merfolk and the stories about them pervade Cornwall, the seaside community where Sapphire and her older brother, Conor, live. One of the most memorable moments, in fact, between Sapphire and her father, happens when he tells her the story about Mathew Trewhella, who left his human girlfriend for the Mermaid of Zennor. So, it’s not really a surprise that Sapphire’s dad, also named Mathew Trewhella, disappears after going out on his boat late one evening. The kids believe that their dad isn’t dead, but lives now with the Merfolk, and they want to prove it. Coincidentally, they begin to be called by the sea and start swimming with the Mer. The two experience a double life as “Air” people and partly transformed “Mer” creatures. This confuses them and they begin to question who they are and what their true ancestry is—and of course they want to find their dad. When their mother gets a diver boyfriend, Roger, the kids have to decide whether or not they want to save him from certain death, or to let him follow his human fate. What’s fresh about this mermaid story is that it doesn’t try to be what it’s not; so many of the elements will be familiar to young readers, but they will get to examine Mer life from their own perspective. A gentle, pleasurable read. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-081852-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2006
Illegal immigrant sisters learn a lot about themselves when their family faces deportation in this compelling contemporary drama. Immigrants from Bangladesh, Nadira, her older sister Aisha and their parents live in New York City with expired visas. Fourteen-year-old Nadira describes herself as “the slow-wit second-born” who follows Aisha, the family star who’s on track for class valedictorian and a top-rate college. Everything changes when post-9/11 government crack-downs on Muslim immigrants push the family to seek asylum in Canada where they are turned away at the border and their father is arrested by U.S. immigration. The sisters return to New York living in constant fear of detection and trying to pretend everything is normal. As months pass, Aisha falls apart while Nadira uses her head in “a right way” to save her father and her family. Nadira’s need for acceptance by her family neatly parallels the family’s desire for acceptance in their adopted country. A perceptive peek into the lives of foreigners on the fringe. (endnote) (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4169-0351-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Ginee Seo/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2005
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
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