Part of Your Nightmare

July 10, 2020

Gr 3-6- Middle-schooler Shelly is struggling with trying to fit in at a new school. After her parents split up, she and her brother moved with their mom into a townhouse in a quaint seaside village. Her family runs the local aquarium, so Shelly takes comfort in her love of aquatic life. The problem is that her passion just doesn't fit with the in-crowd. Narcissistic Kendall and her two sidekicks, Attina and Alana, think anything science related is nerdy and not cool. Shelly downplays her love of science but is shocked to witness two eyes glowing with a strange light when they take a school field trip to the aquarium. That night, she awakens to a strange light flashing in her brother's room. When she investigates, she finds a nautilus shell that she had gifted her brother from her aquarium visit to the aquarium that day. As soon as Shelly touches the glowing shell, she is transported to a strange underwater world ruled by the sea witch, Ursula. Ursula offers Shelly one wish in exchange for an unnamed deed. Just wanting to fit in with her newfound friends, Shelly signs a grim contract only to discover terrible consequences. She wished to be the fastest swimmer on her school's swim team but realizes Ursula's magic is slowly turning Shelly into a fish. Shelly desperately tries to hide her changing state yet receives vile, aquatic reminders from Ursula that she must pay back her wish. The plot is fast-paced and suspense is well maintained. The ultimate lesson of "be careful what you wish for" will resonate with bibliophiles. VERDICT This sinister tale will wrap its tentacles around avid mystery lovers with a moderate dose of chills.-Julie Shatterly, W. A. Bess Elem. Sch., Gastonia, NC

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2020
A new middle-grade series featuring Disney stories' scary elements opens with The Little Mermaid's Ursula. Shelly Anderson has struggled to make friends ever since she changed schools following her parents' breakup. Even though she's the eco-conscious daughter of an aquarium owner, the spineless Shelly allows her new, popular-clique friends to peer-pressure her into tossing a disposable coffee cup into the ocean. After littering, she's stalked by sea witch Ursula, who offers a deal: She'll make Shelly a fast swimmer in exchange for a favor to be named later. Of course, there's something fishy with the deal: Shelly starts slowly transforming into a fish (first gills, then webbing between her digits and scales); to reverse it, she must retrieve the old trident that's in the aquarium for Ursula. The narrative's insistence on telling over showing causes it to fail to capture any visceral sensory details needed for the body-horror storyline to succeed. Ironically, the most successful horror moment is the least logically connected to the magic at play (her brother's dead goldfish appears in the school toilet to warn her off from the deal). The half-baked environmental storyline features after-school-special levels of heavy-handedness. The ending's unhappy for Shelly, though there's a touch of humor and her safety's implied. Most characters lack descriptions; Shelly has olive skin, and one significant secondary character is coded Latinx. Coasting on a popular villain isn't enough to keep the watered-down story afloat. (Horror/fantasy. 8-12)

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