William J. Smith

The Reluctant Little Mermaid William J. Smith

Young Samantha Turner is a typical middle-class teenager who's always loved the water,since she was real small,but when her mother refuses to let her go swimming in neighbors' backyard swimming-pools,she insists that her mother tell her why,but her mother is strangely reluctant to, until Samantha forces her to admit what Samantha has been suspecting for a while now; she and her mother are mermaids. Samantha eventually learns that her mother and maternal grandparents were mermaids who decided to live amongst humans on dry-land. Eventually Samantha wants to go to an upstate sleep-away camp,but her parents are reluctant to let her go,but she eventually convinces them to change their minds and it is at this sleep-away camp that Samantha meets a young boy named Bobby,who eventually informs Samantha that he is the male equivalent of a mermaid; a merman. Eventually Samantha and Bobby form a close, unshakable bond.