Soraya and the Mermaid — Salima Alikhan

11/16/2020Ten-year-old Soraya, whose name means “star” in Persian, is lonely: her father has left, her mother doesn’t understand her love of comics, and her “whole class thinks a weirdo.” On a school trip to an aquarium, shown in Sohrabi’s lively spot illustrations, she encounters Estelle, a brown-skinned mermaid who asks Soraya to help her rejoin her family. Taking inspiration from her comic book hero, Soraya hoists Estelle into a janitor’s bucket and aims for the bay. Aided by the aquarium’s animal inhabitants—leaping stingrays, dancing hippos, beluga whales singing in harmony—and by attack seagulls enlisted from the outside, the pair manages to escape, leaving Soraya with a disturbing dilemma: help Estelle, or take her new friend home to ease her own feelings of isolation. Fortunately, Soraya, mulling over personal hurts, realizes that “what people want matters.” Finding comfort in Estelle’s empathy, she even gains the courage to write her own comic, which appears at book’s end—an imagined version of Estelle’s journey home, as interpreted by Naalchigar. Though the protagonist’s transition to superhero mode happens awfully quickly, Alikhan admirably centers the importance of valuing personal strengths. Ages 8–10. (Nov.)