Customer Reviews

Thora: A Half-Mermaid Tale

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

 

 

Thora: A Half-Mermaid Tale is a delightful combination of comedy, adventure, and fantasy. Thora hereself is a unique character who brings fun whenever she shows up. Gillian Johnson slipped in many fun, witty lines that add humor to the book. There is a whole menagerie of delightful characters. Also, the comedy/fantasy turns into a mystery/adventure when Thora, with the help of her new friends, must rescue her mother. Overall, an excellent read for fans of authors such as Gail Carson Levine, and Roald Dahl! Enjoy!

My daugher is [...] and we came upon this book at a yard sale. She read it right away- we couldn't tear her away from it. This is definately the best book about a mermaid for her age group (8-10?). (She is a pretty good reader, so some people may want to wait a bit since it is recommended for 9 year olds).

My daughter believes in mermaids and the magic of knowing or becoming one, so this was the perfect book for her. She loved the plot and giggled at the whimsical humor that runs throughout the story. She insisted on showing us all the cute and funny pictures. It is now her FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME (and she has read a lot of books). She shared her book with other girls in their bookclub- and they all loved it too. Our only problem was that we couldn't find it for a while. Now that we know it is here at Amazon, we will tell all our friends. I am looking forward to giving her the sequel for her birthday.

Thank you Gillian Johnson for writing such a wonderful book!

Bought THORA for my 8 year old daughter last week because she is a big fan of EMILY WINDSNAP. It arrived on a rainy afternoon--perfect time. My daughter didn't stop reading until she was done. We had to go to the book store the next day and buy the others in the series (our library doesn't carry them).

We liked the idea of this book. The writing is only fair, as Thora's personality is introduced in kind of an awkward, bumpy way. She's very in-your-face very suddenly. We get that she's kind of like Pippi. We liked for a while the fact that she seems to be an energetic, curious homeschooled kid but then again her constant misuse of vocabulary may not be a great depiction of homeschoolers.

But the worst part came while reading this book aloud to an 8 yo I was stopped in my tracks on pages 112 which says that "The Sisters had boyfriends, although never anything very serious. They always intended to get married but somehow never got around to it." and on page 113 where we learn that "It was Dottie's announcement that she was going to have a baby that changed everything. While the unexpected news was received by the sisters with surprising calm, the people of Grimli were a little less accepting." For God's sake do we need to be reading books to 8-10 year olds with story lines based on sex-and-babies-out-of-wedlock? Very, very off-putting.

My 6 yo daughter wanted to read the Emily Windsap (?) series, and so i purchased them and read them in advance - so glad i did because i found them full of middle school angst (cliquey girls, 'whose your best friend') and so was delighted to find the Thora books - just reading the first one, but it is much lighter and age appropriate for my young mermaid lover.

This is no good-mermaids have tails and maybe gills-not blowholes and scaled legs. Thora is not a mermaid, she is a freak. Emily Windsnap is much better, the girl in that story is a mermaid. This is just a cheap knock-off. No thanks. :(