REVIEW - KEEPER

This book is for 4 of my reading challenges.
Outdo Yourself Challenge(51/200)
The 50 States Challenge(Texas)
Young Readers Challenge
52 Books in 52 Weeks(Wk.17)

"Keeper" by Kathi Appelt
Product Description(Amazon.com)
To ten-year-old Keeper, this moon is her chance to fix all that has gone wrong...and so much has gone wrong. But she knows who can make things right again: Meggie Marie, her mermaid mother who swam away when Keeper was just three. A blue moon calls the mermaids to gather at the sandbar, and that's exactly where she is headed -- in a small boat, in the middle of the night, with only her dog, BD (Best Dog), and a seagull named Captain.
When the riptide pulls at the boat, tugging her away from the shore and deep into the rough waters of the Gulf of Mexico, panic sets in, and the fairy tales that lured her out there go tumbling into the waves. Maybe the blue moon isn't magic and maybe the sandbar won't sparkle with mermaids and maybe -- Oh, no..."Maybe" is just too difficult to bear. Kathi Appelt follows up to her New York Times bestseller, The Underneath, with a tale that will pull right at your very core -- stronger than moon currents -- capturing the crash and echo of the waves and the dark magic of the ocean.
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Atheneum; 1 edition (May 18, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781416950608
ISBN-13: 978-1416950608

MY THOUGHTS: This is a great book full of mystery and a young girls belief that her mother is a mermaid. So one night Keeper decides to go find her mother. Keeper has gotten in trouble through some things that happened to her. It started with the Crabs "talking" to her. She sets them all lose and this leads to a domino effect of things happening that upsets her family and friends. So Keeper thinks her mother, the mermaid, can help her "fix" everything. But the pull of the tide pulls Keeper out into the ocean and she doesn't know how to get back. With a little help from a seagull named Captain, Keeper gets rescued. Does Keeper find her Mermaid mother? You'll have to read the book to find out.

MY RATING: 8-12