Annie Lumsden, the Girl from the Sea

May 24, 2021
Annie Lumsden and her sea shanty–singing mother, who “finds tales everywhere,” live in a modest white house “above the jetsam line,” from which parts of the village of Stupor can be glimpsed. The 13-year-old, a white only child with learning difficulties and an innate love of the ocean, describes herself poetically, with language borrowed from the sea (“I have eyes that shine like rock pools. My ears are like scallop shells”) and occasionally suffers from “falls,” seizure-like episodes in which she goes “far away beneath the sea.” One day, Annie asks her mother to tell a new origin story for her, “something that works out the puzzle of me.” The resulting tale involves the woman’s meeting a mysterious man from the sea with fins and webbed feet, nine months before Annie herself is born; later that day, a traveler snaps a picture of Annie that seems to reveal the truth behind her otherworldliness. Almond’s (Joe Quinn’s Poltergeist) sea-swept story, enhanced by Alemagna’s (Things That Go Away) eloquent, softly hued watercolor and colored-pencil illustrations, melds memorable turns of phrase with an appreciation for the unexpected: “Sometimes the best way to understand how to be human is to understand our strangeness.” Ages 7–10.

Starred review from April 15, 2021
Rather like the seashell her mother picks up that is "as ordinary as any seashell, as beautiful as any seashell," the precious mystery that is Annie Lumsden is not apparent to all. Thirteen-year-old Annie lives with her mum in a small house beside the sea in a beautiful location in the northeast of England. Classmates ridiculed her difficulties at school, and now she suffers inexplicable seizures. Annie and her single mother, who sings sea shanties in the pub and sells handcrafted art made of shells and rocks, glory in the spinning of tales and in connections between their beloved home and far-flung times and places. One day, Annie asks Mum to explain how she came to be; the ensuing tale weaves together the mysteries of the watery world that Annie, whose hair "drifts like seaweed" when she swims and whose "thoughts dart and dance inside like little minnows in the shallows," loves so dearly. It involves a mysterious man from a seaweed forest, rather like a selkie, who had "skin smooth and bright like sealskin," spoke with a "liquid voice," and is her true father. This short, captivating story is enhanced with watercolor-and-colored-pencil illustrations in natural tones; the illustrations' impressionistic style perfectly mirrors the text's blurring of the lines between the magical and the everyday. This gentle tale reminds readers of the power of stories to remake our humdrum worlds into something wondrous. Main characters present White. Enchanting. (Fiction. 9-13)

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