The Shadow Mother

Gr 5–8—A dreamy, mystical quality suffuses this brief, wispily written tale, inspired by an unusual variation on the legend of the selkie. Spying an enchanting young woman, a sailor steals and hides the shadow she leaves upon a beach. Though bereft by her loss, she becomes the man's wife and bears him a son. This child grows up aware of his mother's sorrow and yearning to revisit the shore. Inside his father's sea chest the boy eventually discovers the long-hidden shadow, a "roll of white skin," that reminds him of his strange and unremembered dreams. Upon touching it, he burns with fever and can be cured only by taking the skin into the cold water. As the water touches his burning skin, the boy's fever subsides and, when the floating skin wraps around him in the waves, he turns into a fish and joyfully realizes that he has entered his dream world. Young children will find this story odd and its sparse details difficult to comprehend. Older readers might appreciate this, particularly if they are familiar with selkie and other changeling-type stories. The surrealistic illustrations don't drive the story, though frequent fish images help foreshadow the conclusion. Libraries would do well to consider other, more gracefully written versions that better capture the folkloric spirit of this beloved tale from Celtic lore.—Carol Goldman, Queens Library, NY