mermaids – PCLD blog

For a while, did it feel like “The Little Mermaid” was getting left behind? Hans Christian Andersen’s tale hasn’t seen a big screen update in many years and it seems the Cinderellas and Snow Whites are always getting more love in literary retellings than the Sea King’s daughter. Maybe it’s because there are fewer versions of the mermaid’s story though Andersen did have a few stories he was influenced by. But overall there are fewer original stories of this fairy tale than many of the other stories we’re familiar with — there are no Grimm or Lang versions of “The Little Mermaid.”

Despite the origins perhaps time’s are changing and mermaids are beginning to get a little more respect. According to The Hub, mermaids are an upcoming trend in Young Adult literature and where YA goes, the rest of the literary world is sure to follow. *fingers crossed*

Below we’ve included a few “Little Mermaid” remixes (a couple based on “Undine“) as well as recently published mermaid stories.

Goddess of the Sea by P.C. Cast — A romance about 25 year-old US Air Force sergeant Christine Canady who is looking for something to cure her loneliness. After drinking too much champagne, she recites a divine invocation to revive her humdrum life. But how is she to know the spell actually works? When her plane crashes into the ocean, CC’s life changes forever.

Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs — Seventeen-year-old Lily, half-mermaid and half-human, has been living on land and attending high school, where she develops a crush on a boy but is afraid to tell him of her true destiny as the ruler of the undersea kingdom of Thalassinia.

Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale by Carolyn Turgeon — The story of two women with everything to lose: Princess Margrethe who’s kingdom is at war and Princess Lenia, a mermaid longing to return to the human man she carried to safety.

Lost Voices by Sarah Porter — Assaulted and left on the cliffs outside of her grim Alaskan fishing village by her abusive, alcoholic uncle, fourteen-year-old Luce expects to die when she tumbles into the icy waters below, but when she instead transforms into a mermaid she is faced with struggles and choices she could never have imagined.

Midnight Pearls: A Retelling of ‘The Little Mermaid” by Debbie Viguié — A mysterious child is rescued by a fisherman at sea. She grows up not always welcomed in the village and has only one very special, secret companion — Prince James.

More Mermaids: