THE SECRET OF THE OCEANS

Hints that some of her nearly extinct mermaid relatives might still survive in Iceland send Alea and friends sailing off aboard the Crucis—straight into the clutches of an archnemesis.

This third volume in a translated series from Germany takes the nautical Alpha Cru, who earn money through busking, through a succession of crises, including rescuing a whale caught in a discarded net and navigating the fallout after moody, overprotective Lennox sees Alea being kissed by bandmate Tess. But the young musicians temporarily put personal issues on hold when they’re captured by a bad guy who explains at length his evildoing, which includes both the mass killing of mer-people and, as an unrepentant Sludger (“what the merworld called criminals who dumped in the ocean”), polluting the world’s waters. Fortunately, both the land and the oceans are thickly populated with sprites, nixies, and other magical creatures who always respond to Alea’s calls for help, so she escapes to continue her quest to reunite her people in fulfillment of the requisite prophecy. The translation of the nautical terminology is sketchy in spots, and the young people’s speech sometimes feels oddly formal (as when a 9-year-old asks, “Are they just decoration, or does their flittering and glittering about have a purpose?”). The cast largely reads white. Tess, who’s cued Black and wears her hair in locs, is cringingly described by a sprite as having “funny, twisted hair.”

Earnest and adventuresome, despite some language issues and a paper-thin villain.