Emily and the Mermaid: a novelized fairy tale


     Here’s a riddle: What do you get when you cross Gulliver's Travels with “The Little Mermaid”?  You might get Emily and the Mermaid: A Novelized Fairy Tale. 
     During the 1840s, a coastal island farm girl, Emily McAllister, and a mermaid, Amelia Dearheart, become friends and grow up together.  After they rescue the prince of Beauteous Kingdom, they’re invited to live in the royal palace. 
     Beauteous Kingdom is a dysfunctional fairy tale kingdom.  Students are taught to think inside the box, the kingdom’s prosperity is measured by how much money people borrow to waste on things they don’t need, the purpose of competing newspapers is to show their readers the limits of acceptable discussion and thought, a war is being fought for reasons that don’t make any sense, and twelve powerful magicians claim the ability to create gold and silver by putting magic words on slips of paper.
     When the inevitable crisis threatens to destroy Beauteous Kingdom, it will take the combined skills of humans, mermaids, naiads, and fairies to restore peace and bring common sense to Beauteous Kingdom.


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