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A review by saroz162
The Sea Fairies by L. Frank Baum
3.0
Although far from being Baum's best fantasy, The Sea Fairies has an easy charm - magnified, I'm sure, if you're a small child growing up on the California coastline. The first half of the novel is pure underwater tour, sending the reader to look up antiquated and euphemistic terms for various sea creatures; the plot doesn't really kick in until chapter 11, when the protagonists are captured by a soft-spoken, genteel adversary who might as well be Satan by another name. In a slightly disquieting set of chapters, we meet the slaves he has made from sailors presumed drowned, and our heroes are nearly boiled alive and frozen to death in his attempts to gain the upper hand. Everything ends happily, but it all gets a bit dark for a book that otherwise seems to be for very small children.
The Sea Fairies lacks the awkward stop - start - stop - start inconsistency that plagues some other Baum books of the period, but it's still easy to see why this wasn't a huge seller. Fortunately, even a lesser Baum book still boasts many aspects to enjoy, and illustrator John R. Neill seems to have been inspired to draw incredibly glamorous, even sensual mermaids. It's a gorgeous book, particularly in its original edition with two-tone color plates.
The Sea Fairies lacks the awkward stop - start - stop - start inconsistency that plagues some other Baum books of the period, but it's still easy to see why this wasn't a huge seller. Fortunately, even a lesser Baum book still boasts many aspects to enjoy, and illustrator John R. Neill seems to have been inspired to draw incredibly glamorous, even sensual mermaids. It's a gorgeous book, particularly in its original edition with two-tone color plates.