Title: Heart of the Sea
Author: Riya Surana
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-6641-9956-9
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Book
Pages: 24
Reviewed by: Beth Adams
Pacific Book Review
Mermaids have always had a unique role in mythology, sailor’s stories, fantasy, and children’s books, having a persona of half-woman, half-sea-living underwater creature created with beauty and grace. In author Riya Surana’s illustrated children’s story, Heart of the Sea, readers are introduced to a playful and typical young mermaid who is tasked with protecting the “heart of the sea,” a very valuable treasure indeed.
One day a young boy dives down and seeing the heart of the sea, takes it back home, up onto the land and places it in a pool of water. As the mermaid does her usual things like talking on her seashell (cell phone) to her friends, she fails to notice the boy diving down and taking the heart of the sea. The mermaid is shocked by the disappearance of the heart of the sea, and thinks her father will be very angry at her for not keeping it protected. Eventually she discovers the boy took the heart of the sea by watching the reply of the underwater camera video. After some time, she sees the boy lying upon a
blanket on the shore, where she immediately falls in love with the human. The boy sees the mermaid, goes into the water to talk with her, and asks her to marry him – and she says, “Yes.” Realizing she cannot go on the land because she has a tail fin and no legs, she goes to the tail & leg store to buy a pair of legs.
What we have in this adorable illustrated story is a boy-meets-girl (and visa versa) romance, with the whimsical overlay of modern technology manifesting itself in nautical style. Love finds a way through the creative buying of legs at a store, and solving any obstacle confronting the pretty mermaid in her quest for seeking happiness.
Riya Surana has used a technique of having a sequence of illustrations interleaved throughout the text, giving an opportunity for a parent who may be reading this story to a youngster to discuss the themes of the storyline; as pictures show the playing out of the actions visually very well. Even if a child is reading this to themself, they can pause and contemplate the images in a non-verbal fashion.
Ideally balanced with text, illustrations, clever character development, and of course, humor, author Riya Surana’s Heart of the Sea will captivate the fascination of all readers as they page this charming story. This is a fine addition to all younger years children beginning their journey into seeing the magical and fanciful worlds created by books, as they are reinforced to the basic attraction of boys and girls falling in love.
