Ten-year-old Mary Margaret wants to be a mermaid. She’s been fascinated by them ever since her grandpa told her a mermaid story when she was small. So it seems perfect that she’s on a Greek cruise with her grandma, except that she wasn’t supposed to be going at all. The cruise was her grandpa and grandma’s dream vacation—until he died. Now she is traveling in his place and together she and her grandma will spread his ashes at sea. Mary Margaret isn’t sure what to feel. She knows her grandma is sad, and she’s sad, too, at least some of the time. But she is also spirited, lively, imaginative, and observant. And with someone on board like the singer Miss Victoria—who seems as if she could really be a mermaid with her shimmery, scaly dresses—there are too many possibilities to feel sad all the time. Lynn E. Hazen’s funny, tender story shines brightly, showing death and grieving as part of life, and it is firmly grounded in the perspective of a dynamic, sensitive child. (Ages 8–11)