The premise is so promising as to make me envious: A girl who lives on a houseboat but has never swum -- the result of her mother's apparent lifetime fear of water -- discovers that when she is submerged in water, she transforms into a mermaid. This leads to a number of questions about her identity and her past, which her mother seems to have a very murky grasp of. Emily sets off on a quest to find out the truth, befriending another mermaid and generally upsetting her home life in order to discover the truth. As I read this to my daughter, I thrilled at the first half. The second half, however, falls completely apart in the way that some movies devolve into incoherent action sequences. And the more I read, the more I felt like the writing was merely mundane. My daughter enjoyed it, but we have since moved on to novels that she is just as interested in and are written with much better experience. It comes down to the investment of your time, and in the end, the Emily Windsnap series appears not to be worth it for me. ( )

I would have loved The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler (and series) when I was in upper elementary and middle school.

It was a fun, captivating read–it is about a 7th grade girl who finds out she’s half-mermaid. I mean, c’mon, that’s pretty cool.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It’s a fun story, but the ending resolution came awfully quick. After painting Neptune, the king of the merpeople, as a hard, heartless man–I mean, merman he was very quick to have a change of heart. Too quick, in my opinion.

Other than that it was fun. I’d read the other books in the series just to see what happens to the Windsnap family. ( )

This is definitely a child's book. The main character, Emily Windsnap, is going through the normal pre-teen angst and aging problems. Her chief concerns are to have a best friend and fell like she belongs at school. Those main concepts work well for the average young reader. As an adult reader, I was bummed because I usually love children's literature and I like paranormal books, so I automatically assumed that this would be a fun read. It isn't. The writing style is consistent with the reading level and unlike many other books written for children, there was not much to recommend it to an older audience. I rated it low because I feel that good children's literature should still be pleasant (not painful) for adults to read. As a fifth grade teacher, I read a lot of young adult books and I found this to be lacking in substance. That being said, I'm sure that younger readers would identify with the book. The main character feels and endures similar trials that kids go through and the fantasy of it is cool and different than the normal book. I'm sure my students would enjoy this book immensely and I will be adding it to my library as it isn't offensive in the slightest . ( )

Review of The Tail of Emily Windsnap ( )

http://hollybooknotes.blogspot.com/20... ( )