The girl and the mermaid by Hollie Hughes and Sarah Massini

Alina and her grandmother live in a lighthouse and lately the stories Gran has told to her granddaughter have dried up. She is forgetting the stories she loves to share. Alina is at a loss as to how to help. She peers over the rocks into the sea below and sees a mermaid who beckons her to follow.

The mermaid takes her past seaweed forests, splendid coral reefs, sunken treasure ships, their cargo spilling out over the ocean floor. Sea creatures swim around them; pufferfish, whales, dolphins and shark are joined by turtles, sting rays and squid. Something is glinting far below and they swim towards it. A light filled city comes into view and the merfolk lead Alina towards a well where all the stories are kept. All the stories Alina thought were lost forever, come together in a shell which she takes to the sea’s surface.

She knows that tales must fly to live and tips them into the light atop the lighthouse, so the light’s beam is always full of stories. Alina and her Gran sit on the bench outside the lighthouse, watching the stories as they fill the night sky. I love this idea of the stories filling the night sky, enabling Gran to hold on to her memories.

This charming story of the relationship between a young girl and her grandmother, shows how children can help their older family members manage their lost memories. The child and her grandmother are lovingly drawn, the girl recalling her grandmother’s stories of the mermaid and the animals in the sea, taking the plunge to the city below.

Beautifully illustrated with a huge amount of detail, children will love diving down with Alina noting all the things from the sea around her.  Sarah Massini has an eye for detail which is first drawn with pencil, then transferred to Photoshop. Layers of watercolour and mixed media build up the images she wants to project, the stunning results eye pleasing for all.

I love the image of the mermaid, a fantasy creature with her scales and long hair, seaweed draped around her long fishy tail. And the city beneath the waves is a breathtaking sight, one I can imagine enticing little fingers to recreate.  The illustrations perfectly match the rhyming stanzas, full of adventure and wisdom.

Themes: Sea, Old age, Memory, Verse, Storytelling, Grandparents, Mermaids.

Fran Knight