Literature / Not Quite a Mermaid

Not Quite a Mermaid is a series of children's books by Linda Chapman. It follows the adventures of Electra, a nine-year-old girl who was born human, but was adopted by merpeople. She lives in the shallow lagoon surrounding Mermaid Island.

The books in the series:

1. Mermaid Fire (2005)
2. Mermaid Island (2005)
3. Mermaid Friends (2006)
4. Mermaid Party (2006)
5. Mermaid Treasure (2006)
6. Mermaid Wish (2006)
7. Mermaid Surprise (2007)
8. Mermaid Promise (2008)
9. Mermaid Rescue (2008)
10. Mermaid Tricks (2008)

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Not Quite a Mermaid contains examples of:

• Alliterative Family: Electra's friends, the twins Sam and Sasha.
• Apparently Human Merfolk: When Electra was a baby, she was given magic sea powder, which lets her breathe underwater. She thinks of herself as a mermaid and lives the same way as any other merperson, even though she can't swim as quickly as they can.
• Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: In Mermaid Party, Electra and her dolphin friend Splash are forgiven for all the chaos they caused at the New Year Party because they also saved everyone from four attacking sharks. Electra is even crowned Queen of the New Year.
• Artistic License – Biology: Splash sleeps in Electra's room in her family's underwater cave. In Mermaid Promise, Electra and her friends set up a separate cave for Splash to sleep in as a birthday present. Real bottlenose dolphins can only hold their breath for about twenty minutes, so if they slept underwater, they'd drown.
• Bedsheet Ghost:
  • In Mermaid Friends, two older girls named Keri and Marina prank Electra and her friends by draping themselves in their unzipped white sleeping bag and swimming around outside their cave yelling 'Ooooooohhhhhh!' Sasha is scared so badly that she starts crying, and Electra yells at them for playing such a mean trick. Keri and Marina apologise the next morning.
  • In Mermaid Tricks, Electra and Splash drape themselves in white sheets with eyeholes to scare Nerissa and Sasha. This time Sasha doesn't cry, but she is unhappy about it.
• Bottomless Pits: The shipwreck in Mermaid Wish is right next to a trench so deep that no one has ever seen the bottom and lived to tell about it. Electra and her adopted mother Maris are almost sucked into it by the dangerous currents.
• Breakfast in Bed: In Mermaid Rescue, Maris comes down with a cold. Electra and Splash decide to make her breakfast in bed. While they're looking for sea moss to give her, they find an army of crown-of-thorns starfish eating away at the reef.
• Call Reception Area: A lot of stories begin when Electra does something she isn't supposed to, like diving deep or leaving the lagoon by herself.
• Class Trip: In Mermaid Friends, Electra's teacher Solon takes her and the other merchildren on a three-day trip to Craggy Island, a small, rocky island some distance from Mermaid Island. They spend the nights in a network of small underwater caves.
• Crying Wolf: In Mermaid Tricks, Electra makes a toy blue-ringed jellyfish to scare other merpeople with. Late in the book she sees some real blue-ringed jellyfish, which cause painful stings, drifting towards a porpoise-drawn carriage in which Sasha and Nerissa are riding. She yells a warning, but the other two just tell her they're sick of her jokes. The jellyfish spook the porpoises, which bolt, throwing Sasha and Nerissa out of the carriage and towards the jellyfish. Electra grabs the jellyfish and pulls them away, narrowly saving her friends from being stung.
• Friendly, Playful Dolphin: In Mermaid Promise, a pod of wild dolphins pays a visit to Mermaid Island. Electra and Splash go to play tag with them, although Electra is so much slower than the others that she sits out most of the game.
• Go to Your Room!: In Mermaid Wish, Electra wants to explore a shipwreck, but Maris won't let her go because it's too dangerous. They get in an argument that ends with Maris ordering her to her room.
• Handy Mouth: In Mermaid Surprise, Splash uses his mouth to draw with a pen, and later to stir cake batter.
• Interspecies Adoption:
  • When Electra was a baby, the merpeople found her floating alone in a boat after a big storm. She was adopted by the mermaid Maris.
  • It's also common for mer families to take in orphaned dolphins until they're old enough to travel alone. In Mermaid Island, Maris adopts a bottlenose dolphin named Splash.
• Intrigued by Humanity: Electra is happy with her life as a mermaid, but in Mermaid Wish she becomes curious about her biological parents. She decides to explore a shipwreck to see if she can learn anything about how they lived.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In Mermaid Promise, Electra thinks Splash would be happier if he joined the dolphin pod and left Mermaid Island, so she tells Splash that she doesn't mind if he leaves, even though she knows she'll miss him terribly. Luckily for her, Splash decides to stay after all.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Mermaid Party, Electra and Splash try to help decorate the grotto where the New Year Party will be held. They hang seaweed streamers everywhere, causing other merpeople to get tangled up and drop things. They're assigned to help sweep up pieces of seaweed from the floor, but they get sidetracked exploring side tunnels and disturb a squid that darts into the grotto, spraying ink everywhere and knocking things over.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: In Mermaid Fire, Electra's class goes beyond the safety of the reef into the open ocean for the first time. Electra overhears some older girls calling her and her friends 'little' and 'sweet' and saying they must be scared to dive deep. Electra says, 'I'm not scared!' and says she can dive as deep as they can, even when the older girls tell her they've dived almost all the way to the seabed. Electra's anger at the girls is part of the reason she decides to dive down into the twilight zone, where she gets tangled in a sea fir. She does make it all the way to the seabed by the end of the book.
• Not Now, Kiddo: In Mermaid Party, Electra tries to warn adults about the passage she discovered that leads from the grotto to the open ocean, leaving them vulnerable to shark attacks, but everyone is so mad at her for messing up the decorations that no one will listen to her.
• Samaritan Relationship Starter: In Mermaid Friends, Electra dislikes Keri and Marina because they made fun of her for having legs, and because they made Sasha cry by pretending to be a ghost. But late in the book, Electra finds that both older girls have been stranded on a rock by the lowering tide. If a mermaid's tail is out of the water for too long, it starts to blister, so Electra quickly climbs onto the rock and helps both girls back into the ocean. A moment later, a wave almost throws Electra back against the rock, but Marina grabs her and pulls her to safety. Electra realises that Keri and Marina aren't really mean, just insensitive, and that they share her love of adventure. They agree to be friends. That night, Keri and Marina make up for the ghost prank by showing Electra and her friends a beautiful cave full of bioluminescent jellyfish, where they enjoy a midnight feast.
• Sapient Cetaceans: Dolphins are capable of having conversations with merpeople, who can understand their whistles.
• Seashell Bra: Illustrations show some mermaids wearing shell bras and others wearing human-style bikini tops.
• Speaks Fluent Animal:
  • Merpeople can speak Dolphin. When Electra first meets Splash, he thinks she's a normal human and tries to escape from her until she whistles to him in his language.
  • In Mermaid Rescue, Electra is learning to speak Fish in school. She interviews a Napoleon fish named Kai for an assignment.
• Surprise Party:
  • In Mermaid Surprise, the protagonists throw a surprise birthday party for Sam and Sasha's elderly gran. They hang up a banner and streamers, bake a cake (which comes out totally inedible), and find a fictional creature called a sea mouse to give to her as a present.
  • In Mermaid Promise, Electra and her friends realise that it's been one year since Splash came to Mermaid Island. They throw him a surprise party to celebrate.
• Threatening Shark: In Mermaid Island, Splash's parents are killed by sharks. He runs away, but only succeeds in beaching himself on Craggy Island. He's only saved because Electra decides to swim out and explore the island, and she finds him and helps him back into the water. Later that day, Sam and Sasha are attacked by the same sharks. Electra and Splash come up with a plan to distract and slow down the sharks. The four of them narrowly escape to the lagoon.
• Treasure Hunt Episode: In Mermaid Treasure, Electra learns that fifty years ago, a ship full of treasure sank near Mermaid Island. Two rival teams of divers went looking for it. One group hid the treasure in an underwater cave. Then both groups killed each other, leaving no one who knew where the treasure was. Electra and her friends form a club to look for it. In the end they decide to leave most of it where it is, in the dwarf sea horses' breeding grotto, so as not to disturb the sea horses.

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