Children's book reviews: Young Lana’s fate sealed when she turns in to a sea creature?

Pet O’Connell rounds up a selection of the latest children’s books, including tales of a teen girl who can shape shift when wearing her nana’s coat, a history book in verse, and a boy superhero

Clare-based author Laura Keohane’s debut children’s novel invites readers to suspend disbelief and dive straight into this magical realm.

Secret of the Selkies by Laura Keohane (O’Brien Press, €9.99)

“Lana had to keep it to herself. She could hardly casually drop it in to conversation. Like, can you pass the salt? And, by the way, I found a magic coat and now I can transform in to a seal.”

Besides, why should she share this amazing discovery with her family?

 Their attention is absorbed by her ‘precious’ older brother, whose attendance at science camp has caused the cancellation of the family holiday and Lana had been looking forward to that.

The absence of both her brother and younger sister means Lana is facing a summer with only her grandparents for company in their cottage by the sea, but at least it’s better than being stuck with her parents. 

On the cusp of secondary school, with all the worries that brings about not belonging to the ‘cool’ gang, she feels overshadowed by her clever brother and invisible in her own family.

While exploring the attic of her grandparents’ cottage, Lana starts reading her uncle’s book about selkies, “magical creatures of the sea, who live in seal form whilst in the water … on land, they can whip off their coats and take human shape”.

She also finds an unusual garment, made from her great-granny Rhona’s ‘good coat’, labelled with the instruction: “Try on in water.”

She can’t resist doing exactly that, of course, and the discovery — a bathtub eureka moment — that the coat transforms her in to a seal is quickly followed by the realisation that she is not the first shape-shifting member of her family.

By pressing her grandfather for information and studying her uncle’s book, she comes to understand that her great-granny was a selkie, and when Lana enters the sea wearing the coat, a whole new world is revealed, where she can perhaps find a real sense of belonging with others of her own kind.

Through the many difficult selkie initiation challenges that lie ahead for Lana, her yearning for identity remains a central theme. 

It gives her courage in the face of danger, while also proving her undoing as she overlooks the importance of belonging to her own human family in favour of the wonders of her newly-discovered world.

A floating fusion of folklore with friendship in the age of social media, Clare-based author Laura Keohane’s debut children’s novel invites readers to suspend disbelief and dive straight in to this magical realm.

If selkie shape-shifting seems too fanciful for today’s savvy pre-teens, Keohane tempers the faery vibe with internet slang. 

Poor aul granddad is bemused to find he is the GOAT who slays, though at least he’s not a ‘bit cringe’, in the lexicon of Lana and her new friend, Cora.

Publishing on May 4, Secret of the Selkies will enchant readers aged nine-plus who allow themselves to be carried away on a wave of imagination — but watch out for an unexpected southpaw in the shape of McGuigan, the family’s ancient cat.

Little Irish History Heroes by Niamh Donnellan, illustrated by Brian Fitzgerald (Gill Books, €14.99)

Heroes don’t come much bigger than Fionn Mac Cumhaill, who, among many great deeds, is credited with the construction of the Giant’s Causeway.

Though the legend’s accuracy as a precise historical account might be questionable, and his wife may deserve greater credit than Fionn for outsmarting his Scottish rival, he certainly ranks as one of Ireland’s great heroic figures.

His story, along with those of Cú Chulainn, Gráinne Mhaol, Queen Maeve, St Brigid, and Brian Boru, is retold in verse for young children, with Brian Fitzgerald’s illustrations depicting the heroes in diminutive form.

Narrated in the first person, each character tells their own tale, with Gráinne, aka Grace O’Malley, the pirate queen of Connacht, introducing her crew thus: “Meet Patch, the one-eyed pirate, and Hoppy, with one leg. Chef Scurvy cooks our meals, and for washing, talk to Peg.

“Aha! We spy a lonely boat. My crew spring into place. ‘Let’s do some pirating!’ I shout. A grin upon my face.”

If Kilkenny author Niamh Donnellan takes poetic licence with aspects of Irish history, this light-hearted follow-up to her debut picture book , Little Folklore Friends, will tickle the funny bones of readers aged four to six, while introducing them to some of the big figures of Ireland’s past.

Heroes of Light and Shadow by Conor Forrest (O’Brien Press, €9.99)

In Oisin’s small, cluttered bedroom is a stack of dog-eared comics telling tales of the incredible adventures of Captain America, Hulk, Batman, and Wolverine.

Though his day-to-day reality involves nothing more exciting than homework and avoiding the school bullies, Oisin has always dreamed of being a superhero.

Perhaps, having overheard a plot to steal an ancient amulet while on his school trip to the national museum, Oisin’s heroic ambitions explain why he decides to sneak back into the museum at the dead of night to investigate.

Perhaps it’s also because the museum security guard refuses to take his report of the three vampire-like theft conspirators seriously, and his teacher accuses him of spending too much time reading fantasy stories.

He’s not long finding out that the life of a superhero involves quite a lot of scary bits, specifically watching a security guard’s head being chopped off with a battleaxe by one of the museum raiders, being seriously injured, then waking up in a coffin, having been buried alive.

After that rude awakening, Oisin’s career as a hero takes a turn for the better when he is unearthed from his coffin by an uncle he didn’t know he had, one Fionn MacCool, to discover that he has inherited some measure of immortality.

The immortality aspect is quite useful, since it appears his attackers were horned Fomorians armed with poison-tipped axes, but, on the down side, the Fomorians’ bid to steal the amulet seems to be part of an evil plan to unleash ancient dark forces and bring about mass destruction of the human population.

The underground world of the Tuatha Dé Dannan meets modern-day Dublin, and Oisin finds himself right in the thick of the battle to save humanity, just like his superheroes.

Aimed at readers aged nine-plus, this debut novel from Kildare author Conor Forrest is but the stuff of fantasy, of course.

The Fomorians’ notion of their rise to rightful supremacy in a new order built on the genocide of the human population surely has no parallels in reality. Does it?

And could an unhinged leader, with nothing to lose as he faces his own imminent demise, ever really wield such power as to threaten the whole of humanity?

In a world where truth is now stranger than fiction, we can but dream of the arrival of a new superhero.