Under the Mermaid Angel - Softcover

Moore, Martha

4.07

67 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375895078 ISBN 13: 9780375895074

Publisher: Laurel Leaf, 2001

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Thirteen-year-old Jesse leads a pretty boring life in just about the most boring place in the universe -- otherwise known as Ida, Texas. She cannot forget the death of her baby brother seven years ago, and how she just couldn't pray for him when he was sick. She never talks about it though, not even to her best friend, which is something she doesn't have, anyway. But all that changes when Roxanne moves into the trailer next door. Thirty years old, with her fake fur coat, wild red hair, and romantic notions, Roxanne is a revelation to Jesse. Why has she moved to Ida, of all places? Their growing friendship will change Jesse's life, giving her back a vision of hope beyond the mundane world around her.

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About the Author:

Martha Moore is the author of Angels on the Roof and Matchit, as well as Under the Mermaid Angel, which was the 1994 Delacorte Press Prize winner, as well as receiving honors from the American Library Association as both a Best Book for Young Adults and Notable Book for Children. She teaches English in the Arlington, Texas, Independent School District.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 6-8?Stuffed in a trailer park in Ida, Texas, with two parents and three younger siblings, Jesse, 13, is surrounded by the warm tumult of family life but is too much in touch with an icy core of loneliness. Things seem better when she finds a first best friend in Roxanne, a flashy woman who has moved into the neighboring trailer. Jesse tearfully confides in her that she is sure her refusal to pray for her baby brother's recovery caused his death, and Roxanne talks of her two tragic marriages, of a baby she put up for adoption. Her greatest longing is to see this child, who turns out to be Jesse's very own worst enemy, Franklin, a.k.a. Frankenstein. When Roxanne decides to hold a party in the town's wax museum to honor its owner's departure for a nursing home (and thereby wrangle a dance with her unknowing son), Jesse just doesn't see how she can persuade bratty Franklin to attend. Moore paints an indecorous backroads America in which it seems reasonable enough to hang a mermaid angel above a Last Supper tableau. It is a place in which meager and garish possessions can symbolize great moments of heart; a place peopled with wonderfully flavored, idiosyncratic characters and a small town that finds itself alternately attracted to and repulsed by physical deformity. Through it all, Roxanne reassures Jesse that there are angels everywhere, but we just can't see them. Moore tells a sensitive coming-of-age story tinged with both guilt and humor; but more importantly, she offers expiation.?Cindy Darling Codell, Clark Middle School, Winchester, KY
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