Customer Reviews

Little Mermaid

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I had this book as a child and now that I'm a mother I went to the trouble of looking it up so my own daughter can enjoy it when she's old enough. I was probably about 7-9 years old when I first read and cherished this book. Then and now I found the illustrations compelling - highly naturalistic, and yet still highly expressive in use of colors, gestures, expressions, and details. What I liked best about this book then and still is the ending. Spoiler alert: it is not a typical happy or sad ending at all. The girl doesn't get the guy in the end, nor does she go back to her life as a mermaid. Her prince never falls in love with her (although he does deeply care for her as if she were his sister) and she is finally put in a position where she must sacrifice either him or herself. She discovers that loving him means not being able to destroy him to save herself, and for this she is rewarded, not with her fairy-tale dream-come-true, but rather, with a chance to transcend both her mermaid and human existence as a wandering spirit. It is a confusing ending in some ways, especially when we are so used to the conventions that split everything into black and white, good and evil, happily-ever-after or tragic-ending. But that is exactly why it is so great. That ending struck me when I read it as a child. I read the book over and over again, gazing at the illustration in the end of the mermaid as a wandering soul, pondering the meaning of it all. When the Disney film "The Little Mermaid" came out I was excited, but then disgusted at how they had changed the ending into the typical girl-gets-the-prince happy ending. Girls are so bombarded with that same old thing. Where are the challenges to our preconceived notions, our unrealistic archetypes, our notions of good, evil, punishment, and reward?

We read this book and decided to throw it away, two pages show a knife but the place where the mermaid is standing close to the prince and his new bride with it in her hand with the decision to kill him or sacrafice herself. A little too deep for these ages. We do have younger children but i would not recomend this book.