Love transcends all barriers in this modern fairy tale

When the Mer-Child learned the story of the Little Mermaid, he recognized it as the account of his mother and father, the beautiful mermaid and the human man for whom she sacrificed everything. But that love had left their offspring, the Mer-Child, stranded between worlds, as unwelcome in the realm of the sea as in the earth above. Never fitting in, he has been left to wander, searching for friends, his silvery tail fluttering mournfully in the waves.

One day he notices a little girl sitting on the beach. Her father must carry her to and from the shore each day because her legs are paralyzed. Her father is black, her mother white, and she is as much an outcast in both communities as the Mer-Child is in his own. Slowly, warily, they find kinship, both in their differences and in their similarities, and they form a bond that changes them forever. What each learns about the value of being different makes this modern-day fairy tale a new classic, with two memorable characters and an enduring message.