The Fish in Room 11 - Softcover

Heather Dyer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1908435852 ISBN 13: 9781908435859

Publisher: The Chicken House, 2013

Synopsis

Toby can't remember a time he didn't live at the seaside hotel. When he meets Eliza Flot down by the pier, he takes to her, well, like a fish to water. And when he meets her parents, that tips the scales even more. So what if they're mermaids?

About this title

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5–Toby, an orphan, has lived in a seaside hotel since he was left there as a baby. Mr. Harris, the manager, allows him to stay on but makes him sleep in the attic and work to earn his keep. It is a lonely life for Toby until the day he meets a young mermaid named Eliza Flot on the beach. She takes him to the cave where her family has lived since all of the other mermaids went away and introduces him to her mother and father. Toby falls in love with the Flots and is touched by their kindness to him. When treasure seekers invade the beach, the mermaids' hiding place is jeopardized. With the help of a retired captain and Margot, Mr. Harris's elderly relative, Toby hides the Flots in the hotel by disguising them as wheelchair-bound guests. Before long, the manager suspects that something is amiss, and it is a race against time as Toby and his accomplices try to get the family to safety before Mr. Harris can reveal the truth to the media. Amusing black-and-white sketches depict the action. Toby is a charming and likable character. However, although the premise is promising, the story never reaches its full potential. Mr. Harris is a very flat character and many of the others are stereotypical. The mystery surrounding Toby's past is transparent and will be detected by readers long before the author divulges the secret. A secondary purchase.–Linda Zeilstra Sawyer, Skokie Public Library, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 2-4. Orphaned Toby has lived in a seaside hotel ever since he can remember, wearing the same pair of pajamas and working as a servant for the hotel's owner, the thoroughly unpleasant Mr. Harris. Things pick up for Toby when he's out under the pier and hears a mermaid cracking mussels with her teeth. He eventually befriends Eliza Flot and her mermaid family, and they give him a duke's gold signet ring from their collection of sunken treasure. Unfortunately, when Mr. Harris spies it, he vows to comb the beach for the rest of the duke's treasure, lost 10 years ago in a shipwreck. Toby must warn the mermaids . . . but how, when the sneaky owner's son, Nigel, won't quit shadowing him? Readers who love Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach will adore this funny, old-fashioned orphan-finds-a-new-family tale. Bailey's spidery ink sketches of the pointy-nosed cast, about three per chapter, are as captivating as the story. Karin Snelson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: The Chicken House
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1908435852
• ISBN 13: 9781908435859
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160