Review Detail

While it might be too soon for original readers of Kessler's The Tale of Emily Windsnap (2003) to have children of their own, the nine book series is still in print. Emerging readers can get a good introduction to Emily, a girl who discovers she is half-human and half-mermaid with this early reader book.

Even though Emily and her mother live on a boat, her mother won't let her play in the ocean because she thinks it is too dangerous, and you never know what it out there in the water. Emily isn't happy with this, since she sees her friends having fun, but she gets a clue as to why her mother is keeping her out of the water when swim classes are held at school. She starts to feel very strange in the water and has to be helped out. The instructor tells her it was just a cramp, but Emily is suspicious. One night she sneaks out to take a dip in the ocean, and she feels her legs turning into a fin! When she gets caught in some rocks, she is saved by Shona, another mermaid who is surprised that Emily didn't know she was a mermaid. The two are happy to be friends, and as she sneaks back home, Emily looks forward to more underwater adventures.