B-017 ❃ Josephine Cameron ❃ January 18-22, 2021

This is the third time I’ve written this. So now, I’m not gonna write as much. I HATE this new Word paste thing that Tumblr is doing. It’s stupid and I wish you could at least toggle it on and off.

*ahem*

Yes. I did finish reading this book in mid-January and I’m only posting it now. Winter Break was long but I still wanted to spend some time working on my channel and catching up on sleep (I caught up too well). When I finally got the time and motivation to sit down and read again, I cracked open Maybe a Mermaid.  This was one of two books I acquired from the campus store before I left to go on break. I saw the spine and immediately picked it up cuz we all know we judge books by their covers. Otherwise, we’d never pick any of them up. This particular one had a mermaid tale on it and no questions were asked beyond that. I’d spent 15 minutes pacing around the Alumni Author section and the old white lady behind the counter was eyeing me since I stepped into the store. I quickly chose what other book I wanted, paid, and left.

Thankfully, I was pretty happy with what I purchased. This is a cute story about the trouble of making and maintaining friendships when someone moves around a lot and accepting when things don’t fully go according to plan. The book follows a young, 12 year old girl named Anthoni as she tries to find a “True Blue” friend that will actually remember her when she leaves the Showboat Inn. The subplot to this friendship quest is the growing frustration and worry that Anthoni has in relation to her mother and their financial situation.

This book gets a lot of things right where I tend to see middle grade books kind of fail (even when I was within the target audience). For one thing, it practices subtlety. A lot of it. It is made abundantly clear that the author understands when and when not to “metagame.” I also liked that ageism was addressed without it not really being a big problem (thankfully). I also LOVE that the mother in this story is actually alive, present, and has a good relationship with her daughter. It seems to be rare in the mermaid middle-grade subcategory, and I greatly appreciate it! Other small things about the story made me really happy with it, but those were the biggest.

I will say though, I’m hesitant to go back in to look for more Alumni books. I really don’t like going into the campus store when I get stared at. It’s not something I’m used to and I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t even think it’s my self consciousness talking since I’ve never felt like that in any store at home in NOLA.