Daughter of the Sea

Rating:
Summary: A great Selkie tale
Review: A great fable based upon many of the Selkie legends from different lands. A childless couple raise as their own a baby girl the husband found one night floating in the sea during a storm. Munroe suspects right away that this child is one of the Selkies (seal-people) but keeps the secret from his wife Jannet. But when a mysterious stranger returns years later asking for the return of his child, the desperate woman tries to hide the child - and brings upon her village the anger of the sea and the seal people. Finally their daughter must chose for herself whether to return to the sea, or stay with the people she has grown to love as her parents. A great addition to lovers of tales of the Selkie.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Read this Book!
Review: In this book, Daughter of the Sea, the book was not interesting at all, and I would give it no stars if the computer would have went that low. It's pretty much about a woman named Janice, and her husband, Munroe, that find a baby and keep it as thier own and hope that no one finds out about it.They live on a ship that they also make thier living off of fishing and selling the fish they catch. This book is very fictional, since there is no way you could find a living baby on the shore, and expect to keep it. And there is no way to make a good living selling fish. This book was not one of my favorites. Taking into consideration I don't have any favorites, and I don't care for a subject about people living on a ship and keeping a baby. There is no way this book should have gotton a overall rating of four stars, but the no stars has my vote.

Rating:
Summary: On the bottom of the beautiful briny sea
Review: The origin of the legend of the selkie is an oddity to me. What was it about the seals of the British Isles that struck islanders as mysterious and mildly frightening? I can understand why they were sometimes mistaken for humans and mermaids. In the water a seal is as lithe and graceful as it is bulky and sluggish on land. Still, there have been a fair amount of selkie tales that place the mysterious creatures firmly into the realm of the creepy. From Mollie Hunter's dark, "A Stranger Came Ashore" to Eve Ibbotson's light-hearted but sometimes dour, "Island of the Aunts", these wondrous creatures have inspired a great number of children's authors to weave together tales of the selkies of the deep. With "Daughter of the Sea", author Berlie Doherty strives to do the same.

Jannet and Munroe were not meant to find the sleeping babe floating between the rocks of the skerries. But find the child they did, and in their childless state the dearest wish of their hearts has come true. They've been given a daughter of their own to raise and love. Watching enviously from her beachside home, indigent Eilean o da Freya watches the gift that should have been hers as the child grows and learns. Eilean understands exactly what little Gioga (as her parents have named her) is and she will use this knowledge carefully in the future. Meanwhile, mysterious creatures from the deep are preparing to take the girl back with them. If Jannet and Munroe resist, they may find themselves in a deeper muddle than they ever could have imagined.

Doherty has penned a rather classic tale. "Daughter of the Sea" follows in the tradition of all those classic fairy tales about children that don't quite belong. The old standby of the barren couple who want to raise a kid of their own is in everything from ancient Norse myths to classic Brothers Grimm tales. In this particular case, "Daughter of the Sea" is mightily similar to Eloise McGraw's, "The Moorchild". In both books you have young daughters that are a little different from everyone else and feel drawn to mysterious beings they want to understand. In the case of this book, Gioga is a little different from your average heroine. She's so drawn to the sea that she can barely pay attention to the people who love her. You're not certain how or who to root for in this tale, but it's fairly clear that the moral of the story is that you shouldn't prevent your children from being who they are rather than who you want them to be.

Unfortunately, "Daughter of the Sea" isn't particularly original. It's definitely written well enough, don't get me wrong. And it also makes for a relatively quick read for kids. But the story doesn't break any new ground. The magic found here could just as easily be found in any classic selkie folktale. Even the conclusion is matter-of-fact and predictable. "Daughter of the Sea" is a nice kind of Intro-to-adapted-folktales. Yet if you're looking for something gripping, original, and a lot of fun then this would not be my first recommendation. Select any of the other books I've mentioned if you like. Read "Daughter of the Sea" only if you're interested in the cannon of complete selkie children's fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Not great, but good enough...
Review: This book is abit wierd, and confusing to me. It's definitly not the best book you would want to pick for Lit Circles (people in elementary school knows what it is, *it's like a project*) This is how the story goes: It all started when there was this terrible storm hitting Hamna Voe, the island where it took place, Munroe Jaffery is still out in the sea trying to fish. He notices that the storm was coming and try to get back to the land, but when he finds out he couldn't, he got drifted into the selkie rocks. There he found a baby, just right under the water, he brought it home to his worried wife, Jannet, and made it their own baby and saying it to everyone that she's their's. They named her Gioga, that was the present name of the Sea Princess who saved a man's life. Eilean a.k.a the crab woman, knew that the baby wasn't theirs and told them that "they'll" come back for her. Jannet didn't believe her at first but she got creeped out by it. Years later, a man called Hill Marliner came and said that he was there to collect his child back, Jannet refused, Hill Marliner gave a month's supply of fish to Munroe (as Hill is the lord of the sea, he controls everything in there) who didn't know it was a reward. Jannet didn't give the baby to the strange man, so he left and came back years later. Jannet didn't tell Munroe about this. Hill Marliner cam back, this time he gave them a purse full of gold coins, Jannet still refused. But during these moments, Gioga became close to Eilean who told her tales of the sea. Jannet got worried, so she sent Gioga away to her cousin's house, which was in a valley where you can't hear or even see the sea. And everyday Gioga became to want the sea more and more. Later on the island, Hill Marliner came back again for the third and final time, this time he got shot and killed by Jannet, who was blinded by her love for the child that she became confused and killed a man. The seals wanted revenge, so they destroyed everything on the beach that the men owned and went away. The sea became rough, but they all knew the only way to get it to calm and get their main source of food back was to get Gioga here on the island again. So a boat with Munroe and Harris(Gioga's friend), led by Eilean to get Gioga back, than the three waves came: Wave of tears, Wave of milk and Wave of Blood, and Harris did what he was told, to his the Wave of blood with the harpoon straight in the heart of the wave. With that done, it was a sacrifice, Eilean was gone... dead... They rescued Gioga and went back to the island, there, Harris did what Eilean told him to do and showed Gioga her seal skin. Later, Gioga cried 7 tears into the sea for all the 7 horrible things that had been done. In the end, she slipped into her seal skin and went into the sea.