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Keeper by Kathi Appelt

7/5/2012

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Picture
Ten-year-old Keeper has lived with a family of unrelated people on a beach in Texas for seven years, ever since her mother the mermaid swam away on Keeper’s third birthday.  Tonight, the night of a rare Blue Moon, she hopes to find her mother again.

 She sits in a tiny boat floating in a pond left behind by the sea, waiting for that full-moon tide to pour in and lift her high enough to release the rope that holds her to a post by the shore.  She waits and waits for the moon to rise, and all the time she thinks of all the hopes that were pinned on this Blue Moon and how she has ruined it for everyone.  
 
Her mother, Maggie Marie, will know how to fix things, she thinks.  Keeper badly wants to fix everything because she loves her family.  She loves Signe, who has cared for her so well since her mother left, and whose special Blue Moon Crab Gumbo she spoiled by setting free the crabs.  But they had begged her to! 
The crabs had spoken to her, and she had heard them, probably because she is part mermaid.

 And dear Dogie, who had planned to sing a special song for Signe this night, until Keeper broke his
ukulele.  By accident! 
 
And poor Mr. Beauchamp, whose night-blooming cyrus fell from the deck only hours before the rare flowering
event he waited for with such hope and longing every year.  But that was Keeper’s dog’s fault, except that Keeper was supposed to be watching BD (Best Dog), so that made it Keeper’s fault.

 She’s obviously headed for trouble, going out to sea in a tiny boat in the middle of the night, hoping to  steer her way to a small sand bar, but her belief in magic and mermaids blinds her to the dangers.

 The beginning is slow and repetitive, in my opinion, but it picks up toward the end and ties things  together with a satisfying end.  The obvious love shared by the characters, human and animal, make for a
warm fuzzy feel to this fish story.

 Although Amazon recommends Keeper for ages 10 and up.  The slow poetic pace at the beginning and some mature themes make it more of an upper middle grade book, in my opinion.

Happy reading!

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    Author


    ​I only review what I like.  So if you see it here it's good!  If you don't see something you like here, I probably didn't get to it yet.
     
    Recommendations are welcome!


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