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Mal the Mischievous Mermaid by Tiffany Mandrake is a delightful little chapter book for young readers.

It might be a middle grade book before MG March, but I got too excited at work to wait. It took me about twenty minutes to read, and it was quite entertaining. I initially got excited about the book because the back says something about not all fairies being nice. It was so refreshing to see something that didn't paint girls as sugar and sweetness. I'm really into the idea of people not telling girls that they have to be sweet. Nobody ever tells boys that.

So I was excited to see this book about supernatural creatures trying to get into the "Abademy of Badness".

Unfortunately, it was quite as exciting as I wanted it to be. Sure Mal doesn't listen and she lies. But in the end everything she ends up doing, kind of ends up being good. Like she takes a tooth from a kraken, but it cures the kraken's toothache. It's not actually about being bad; it's more about being passively good. Basically it didn't thrill me as much as I wanted it to. But I'll still give it three stars because it's something that I would want to offer as an option to my kids.


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