The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen

Delia Sherman's The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen is a fairy tale for 10 year olds set in a magical New York, where the fairy folk run a school for stolen children.

What happens

Neef is the official Central Park changeling. She was taken as a baby and a fairy twin was left behind in her place, and she has grown up in Belvedere Castle with a white rat called Astris for a fairy godmother and a trickster called the Pooka for a fairy godfather.

Her education so far has come from the Folk. Poetry from the Shakespeare Fairies, sailing from Stuart Little, ancient languages from the Old Market Woman at the museum, questing and trickery from the Pooka.

So when Astris announces over tea that she starts school tomorrow, Neef has a fair question. What's school?

Miss Van Loon's School for Mortal Changelings turns out to be full of children exactly like her, one from each corner of Manhattan, and absolutely stuffed with rules. Rule 10 is that students must not complain about the rules.

The details are what make this so much fun. New York Between is the whole city rebuilt as fairyland, so there's a Dragon of Wall Street, a Mermaid Queen in the harbour and a Betweenways instead of a subway. Your reader doesn't need to know New York. The jokes work anyway.

Neef is a great narrator because she's just a bit too pleased with herself. She's been on a real quest. She's the hero and champion of the whole Park. She still has to keep her room tidy and go to bed when she's told, and she still gets caught out by Puck within five pages.

Her trouble is the Mermaid Queen. Neef beat her at the Riddle Game last summer and took her Magic Mirror, and the Queen is a famously sore loser who has already had her towed underwater and nearly drowned twice. Now the Queen wants that mirror back, and she's willing to turn every drop of fresh water in New York salty until she gets it.

There's some low-level nastiness at school, mostly from a boy called Abercrombie who thinks his neighbourhood makes him better than everyone else. It doesn't go further than that.

Do know it's a follow-up. The quest everyone keeps mentioning happened in a book we don't have, and Neef fills in enough as she goes, but your reader is walking in partway.

What to read next

If your reader likes the idea of gods and monsters living quietly inside a real city, The Lightning Thief is in the library too. Percy is twelve, in trouble at school again, and his maths teacher turns into something that tries to kill him.