Keeper

Starred review from May 3, 2010
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.

Starred review from July 1, 2010
Gr 4–7—-en-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"

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2010
Grades 4-7 Rare is the middle-grade book with an epigraph from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, but that famous poems 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 storys 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 Carrolls 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)