When you%E2%80%99re 10 years old and you%E2%80%99ve had a really bad day, you look for your mother. That%E2%80%99s what Keeper is doing%E2%80%94only Keeper believes her mother, who left when she was three, is a mermaid, so her plan involves getting a rowboat out into the sea late that night. And because Keeper has let down Signe, her guardian; Dogie, her best friend/employer; and even Mr. Beauchamp, her surrogate grandfather, she has to carry out that plan alone. Amid scattered pieces of August%E2%80%99s dreamlike spot art, Appelt unfurls Keeper%E2%80%99s magical story slowly, looking back over Keeper%E2%80%99s day and forward to her longed-for reunion with the mother. As in her Newbery Honor%E2%80%93winning The Underneath, the point of view shifts between characters human, animal, and otherwise, but with less of the precocity that sometimes encumbered its predecessor. Texas%E2%80%99s Gulf Coast, alive with Cajun spice and superstition, provides a mysterious haven for them all. A narrative thread based on a tender love story between two teenage boys may draw controversy, but Appelt masterfully balances themes of loss and renewal and demonstrates that magic works in unexpected ways. In so doing, she has written another keeper. Ages 8%E2%80%9312. (May)

Gr 4-7 Ten-year-old Keeper believes in wishes and magic, and why shouldn&9;t she? Her mother, gone for the last seven years, is a mermaid, after all! So on the day of the Blue Moon, when everything she does has a disastrous result, Keeper knows her only option is to row out past the sandbar to the treacherous open water of the Gulf of Mexico, accompanied by BD (Best Dog) and Captain the seagull, and hope her mermaid mama can tell her how to fix things. Keeper is funny, feisty, at times older than her years, and often so stubborn that readers will have to shake their heads. In other words, quite realistic. The adults in the story are beautifully drawn, and absolutely believable, and the Gulf Coast setting is practically a character itself. The tender romance between two teenaged boys years earlier is hinted at, and it is sensitively portrayed, as is the romance between Keeper&9;s guardian, Signe, and the damaged former soldier, Dogie. Filled with love, wild adventure, family drama, and even a touch of true fantasy, this is a deeply satisfying tale.— Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library

Rare is the middle-grade book with an epigraph from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, but that famous poem's sense of longing is well suited to this thoughtful story. Ten-year-old Keeper lives on the Texas coast with her guardian and a small, close community of people and animals, who have all been looking forward to the next blue moon and the traditions and happiness they expect will come with it. Instead, the community experiences a string of disappointing events, and Keeper, feeling responsible, sails away to find her birth mother, whom she believes is a mermaid capable of making everything right. After being tossed about by the sea, Keeper makes it safely back to shore, though any growth in her wisdom and awareness that occurs during the story's 24-hour span is left unclear. Occasional, hazy illustrations add to the mythical mood. A complex plot structure, varying points of view, subtle symbolism, and allusions to classics, from Lewis Carroll's Alice stories to old sea legends, make for a literary exploration of the search for love and meaning that will absorb and reward patient, thoughtful readers.

Ten-year-old Keeper "borrows" a boat to search for her (possibly) mermaid mama. Appelt's haunting, wistful novel alternates between Keeper's travails on the boat and flashbacks that tease out her past. Folkloric elements and magic realism are beautifully integrated into this tale of a girl slowly learning the truth about herself. Hall's shadowy, atmospheric mixed-media illustrations leave room for readers' imaginations to flow.

On a day when everything goes wrong, a little girl relies on the magic of the blue moon to turn things around. <p>On a day when everything goes wrong, a little girl relies on the magic of the blue moon to turn things around. Since her mother swam away seven years ago, ten-year-old Keeper has lived happily with Signe on a remote slice of Texas coast, convinced that her mother's a mermaid. Keeper's waited all summer for the blue moon, when Signe will make blue moon gumbo, their friend Dogie will propose to Signe and their elderly neighbor's night-blooming cereus will flower. But when she accidentally spoils everything, Keeper sets out under the blue moon in a small boat, determined to row across dangerous Gulf waters to find her mother. While the action occurs in a single day, Appelt relies on flashbacks to flesh out her diverse human, animal and mythical characters. Deftly spinning together mermaid lore, local legend and natural history, this stunning tale proves "every landscape has its magical beings," and the most unlikely ones can form a perfect family. Hall's black-and-white illustrations lend perspective and immediacy. Beautiful and evocative--an absolute "keeper." (author's note) <i>(Fiction. 8-10)</p>