I think it is very cool and smart how this book takes a fantasy topic that will draw kids in (mermaids) and uses it to share information about ecosystems and conservation! The art was beautiful as well.

You can tell the author is a park ranger, because this reads just like a guide you might get when going to a national park or hiking trails. Part guide, part fantasy-inspired wildlife encyclopedia, this book takes a look at mermaids as if writing a nonfiction guide book. There's information about the environments you can find them in (basically anywhere with water) as well as what wildlife is seen around them, and how to seeking out these locations in an environmentally conscious way. The focus is on areas of the United States where mermaids live, and each area comes with its own brief description of the location and type of mermaid, as well as an illustration of the mermaid in that setting. The drawings are beautiful, and so fun to look at. There's a lot of creativity that went into this book (there's pages for a hot springs mermaid and one that lives in puddles in the desert, among others) and it's obvious the author took a factual approach when creating her mermaids, since all of the designs are perfectly suited for the area discussed. I loved this, it's a short book, but packed with info and fantastic illustrations.

This is almost exactly what it says on the tin with just a bit more thrown in. It is a field guide to mermaids, but also a guide to what animals and plants live in different water (ponds, lakes, marshes, rivers, oceans, deep sea, etc.) and how pollution, global warming, and general human interference are changing the world we live in.

A good introduction for kids to nature and conservation while adding in mermaids to make it even more fun and exciting. Having questions for kids to ask and think about as they read each section, as a way for them to think about the actual environments that exist was also something I liked in making it scientific + fantasy. The way it brings together fiction and nonfiction is fascinating. This is exactly the kind of book I would have loved as a kid (and loved now as an adult) and I wish we had it now for our Summer Reading Program since the theme is Oceans of Possibilities.

The added table at the back so you could discover what kind of mermaid you would be (I got a Flatwater River mermaid) was an added fun activity as well.

I also thought the way that mermaids that could inhabit the area near the Mariana's Trench were very cool, having just read Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (not a book I would recommend to children, but do recommend for adults who like a horror take on mermaids), they were very close to how I would have pictured the "mermaids" in that book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

I aboslutely loved this book! It was really impressed with the way the author combined the magic of mermaids with knowledge of the natural world. The art was quite beautiful. I'd definitely recommend it to mermaid loving kids!