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Summary
Summary
Keeper was born in the ocean, and she believes she is part mermaid. So as a ten-year-old she goes out looking for her mother--an unpredictable and uncommonly gorgeous woman who swam away when Keeper was three--and heads right for the ocean, right for the sandbar where mermaids are known to gather. But her boat is too small for the surf--and much too small for the storm that is brewing on the horizon.
Kathi Appelt follows her award-winning and New York Times bestselling novel The Underneath with this stunning, mysterious, and breathtaking tale of a girl who outgrows fairy tales just a little too late--and learns in the end that there is nothing more magical and mythical than love itself.
Author Notes
Kathi Appelt is the author of the Newbery Honoree, National Book Award finalist, and bestselling The Underneath as well as the National Book Award finalist The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp , Maybe a Fox (with Alison McGhee), Keeper , and many picture books including Counting Crows and Max Attacks . She has two grown children and lives in College Station, Texas, with her husband. Visit her at KathiAppelt.com.
August Hall has brought his creative talent to both Pixar and Dreamworks. He lives in Hollywood, California.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
When you're 10 years old and you've had a really bad day, you look for your mother. That's what Keeper is doing-only 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's dreamlike spot art, Appelt unfurls Keeper's magical story slowly, looking back over Keeper's day and forward to her longed-for reunion with the mother. As in her Newbery Honor-winning 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's 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 8-12. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
On "blue moon day," when the crabs in her kitchen plead for help, what's a (possibly) half-mermaid girl to do? The answer is clear to ten-year-old Keeper: set them free, even though it means wrecking the crab gumbo lovingly prepared by her guardian Signe. Having ruined the dinner -- and the day -- Keeper "borrows" a boat and, accompanied by her trusty dog BD, sets off in the dead of night to search for her long-lost mermaid mama. Appelt's haunting, wistful novel alternates between Keeper's travails on the boat and flashbacks that tease out her past, describing everyone she loves. There's gentle surf-shop owner Dogie, whose tour of duty resulted in a stutter (except when he sings); quiet gardener and grandfather figure Mr. Beauchamp; and Signe herself, the only mother Keeper has ever really known. In addition, dogs, a cat, and a charismatic seagull -- not to mention some manatees, stingrays, and a merman -- play integral roles. Appelt beautifully integrates folkloric elements and magic realism into her tale of a girl slowly learning the truth about herself. The story's pacing, like the tide that alternately threatens and aids Keeper, is changeable; terse, laconic chapters (some just once sentence long) heighten tension, while longer, lyrical, more meandering sections reflect the laid-back lifestyle of the main characters. Shadowy, atmospheric mixed-media illustrations hint at the story's coastal Texas setting while leaving room for readers' imaginations to flow. elissa gershowitz (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
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.--Medlar, Andrew Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-Ten-year-old Keeper believes in wishes and magic, and why shouldn'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'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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
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 evocativean absolute "keeper." (author's note) (Fiction. 8-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Keeper leaned over the edge of the boat. In the darkness of the night, she glared at the black surface of the water. "You stupid crabs!" She sputtered as she said it. Keeper knew that Signe would be mad if she heard her to use the word "stupid," but it was the only one that seemed to fit, so she said it again, this time with more force. "Stupid!" She hoped the not-allowed word would sink down to the bottom of the pond and etch its way into the crabs' hard shells. She couldn't see them, but she knew they were down there -- ten of them, scuttling along the bottom of the pond. In her entire ten years she had never heard crabs speak before. And then, that very morning, all ten of them had called out to her. Those ten crabs had turned this whole day into a disaster. Stupid, stupid, stupid crabs! Keeper checked the rope that held her boat to the pier. It was still too tight to untie. She needed the moon to rise, which would make the tide rise and then the boat rise, which would make the rope go slack, which would mean she could untie the knot, which would mean she could set her plan into action. Her perfect plan. "Come on, moon," she implored. Didn't it know she was in a hurry? As soon as she said the word "moon," she chewed on her bottom lip. So much had depended upon tonight's moon, a blue moon, second full moon of the month. Signe's gumbo. Dogie's two-word song. Mr. Beauchamp's night-blooming cyrus. All three of those things had depended upon the blue moon, and all of them -- every one -- had been ruined. Ruined by...CRABS! Keeper never wanted to see another crab in her entire life! Never, never, never! And now she needed the moon to turn the tide around and pull her out of the pond, through the channel, and into the breakers until she got to the sandbar. That was the plan...or at least the first part of the plan. (c) 2010 Kathi Appelt Excerpted from Keeper by Kathi Appelt All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
