Keeper's troubles begin when the crabs start talking to her. "Help us!" they say, somehow knowing they're destined for a pot of boiling water. She does help them, and that's when everything starts going wrong in this heart-warming middle school book.
Ten-year-old Keeper lives with Signe, because long ago Keeper's mother, who always said she was a mermaid, swam away and never came back. Keeper and Signe have a warm and loving relationship and they live in an old house near a beach in Texas. One of their neighbors is Dogie, who loves Signe and has a surfboard shop down the beach. The other is elderly Mr. Beauchamp, who dreams of a lost love and is waiting for a special flower to bloom. We also get to know Keeper's dog BD, Mr. Beauchamp's one-eyed cat Sinbad, and Captain the seagull, BD the dog's best friend.
The day that everything went wrong was supposed to be the most wonderful day ever, because Dogie, who stutters except when he sings, planned to sing a two-word song to Signe: "Marry me." But then the day did go wrong: now Signe is mad at Keeper; old Mr. Beauchamp's special flower is ruined, and Dogie's guitar, which he needs in order to sing the "Marry me" song, is broken.
Keeper can only think of one solution: late at night she must take Dogie's little rowboat, bringing her dog BD along, and row out under the blue moon to the sand bar. Once there, she'll call to her mermaid mother and ask for her help. The trip doesn't go as planned and soon she is drifting farther and farther from shore.
This sweet and touching example of magical realism is a great choice to read aloud, both because of its whimsical charm and because of the rhythms of the writing. I loved the characters and never wanted to leave their world, even though dark themes, such as the mother who abandons her child, mingle with the sweetness.
Author Kathi Appelt spent time as a child on the beaches of Galveston, Texas, where her grandmother lived. Her grandmother once rescued an injured seagull, who then became best friends with her dog BD.
Reading level: 9 to 11, and adults who love magical realism. Sometimes Keeper seems younger than ten and I suspect readers twelve and up might not identify with her. Discreet mention is made of a homosexual relationship: Mr. Beauchamp and Jack loved each other long ago in France, never stopped missing each other, and are once seen holding hands-that's as explicit as it gets.
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