A Children’s Book On Environmental Awareness And Activism
Environmental activism, kid activists and black mermaids are the power of three for me! I loved this gorgeous book, Mermaid Kenzie: Protector of the Deep by Charlotte Watson Sherman. It is about a little girl named, McKenzie, who studies the oceanic environment with her Mom. This is a great book for learning about taking care of the ocean and environment. You could also read it with your little one before you take a trip to the beach.

I’m sorry, let me rewind. It is actually Mermaid Kenzie! Because when Kenzie is in the water she has a mermaid tail that she uses to navigate the ocean world. This beautiful little Black girl gets to go on daily adventures with her mother to explore the wildlife and environment of the ocean and beach. The illustrations are absolutely beautiful! There are rich blues that compliment every page.

Representation & Dialect
I’m so happy to see this representation, because one of the top career choices I’ve often heard little girls express is being a marine biologist. Now Black girls have representation to help them see themselves in that role!

Mermaid Kenzie goes on adventures both during the day and night to explore. I love this line, “We read the ocean like other folk study books.” I loved the language in the book. It is written using African American vernacular. Exposure to different dialects and speech patterns is important for readers both young and old.

Call To Action
This book is also a good example for how young people can engage in environmental activism by participating in beach cleanups. Mermaid Kenzie doesn’t just get upset about the trash she encounters in the ocean, she organizes her friends and does something about it! If you are doing a read aloud with children, this is a great opportunity to explore a call to action!

This was a cute easy reader. I liked that it was a child very obviously pretending to be a mermaid and that was totally ok with everyone, including her friends. The really breadth of the book was about trash and ocean conservation. I like the way it was handled and that there was backmatter that gave examples of what everyday people are doing to help.

I received this book as an E-ARC for my honest opinion and the piece that was hard for me was the "dialect" I guess? The book almost seemed to be written poetically which I have no problem with but left out some words and used some words I was not familiar with. I had a lot of trouble finding the correct rhythm.

This book has a great message, but it is long. Way too long. Kenzie likes to be a mermaid. She likes to spend her day at the beach but sometimes her explorations are meet with garbage. This garbage she will help clean.

Mermaid Kenzie loves the ocean. This story is entertaining but also teaches children about the importance of conservation. Children will learn about recycling and keeping the oceans clean. Both the prose and illustrations are beautiful.

This was such a beautifully illustrated book, with a wonderful story and lesson about ocean cleanup. My daughter really enjoyed the book, and will definitely want to read it again.

This beautifully illustrated picture book touches on the importance of conservation and environmental clean ups in our communities. In a welcoming, and not preachy way, the reader is invited by Kenzie to explore the beach and ocean seeing it from the perspective of Mermaid Kenzie. Mermaid Kenzie's glorious afro remains buoyant underwater - true mermaid hair and I'm here for it. The mother-daughter relationship is relatable and I welcome the simple Black joy within their family. I am excited to see the final edition in print from Astra soon!

This is such an adorable book with a really important message. I appreciate how the author shares how important it is to remove plastic from our oceans in an age appropriate and relatable way, that helps show kids how they can make an important impact. All around this is a wonderful book.

I really enjoyed this picture book and can't wait to share it with my godchild. It's about a little girl named Kenzie who has a love of the ocean and imagine herself as a mermaid. Her mother encourages her imagination and need for exploration by taking her out on a boat to the sea. While swimming in her mermaid tail costumer, Kenzie notices the trash floating along the ocean. She decides that even though she doesn't like cleaning she needs to do her part by cleaning up the beach. A good introduction to marine conservation for the preschool and kindergarten age crowd. The lyrical flow of the writing just captures you in.

I received this book from Astra House in exchange for an honest review.

This is a sweet tale of Kenzie and her mother's trip to the beach, where Kenzie loves to be a mermaid. The illustrations use a soothing blue palette to bring the feel of the ocean to life, while the text tells us a story about the changing ocean. I really love the ones where Kenzie is a beautiful Black mermaid, with her green and yellow tail and gorgeous hair. Kenzie learns about how to protect the promise of the ocean with wisdom from her mom. Often, little ones can feel helpless or like there's nothing that they can do to make the world better, but Kenzie gives them simple actions they can take. With a little bit lengthier text, this is better for preschool or kindergarten, rather than toddler / very early preschooler.

This story is just lovely! The storytelling was poetic and the art work was fantastic. A beautiful story about cleaning up our oceans. Though I will say I would have liked more to the story.
I read this to my 9 year old and she really liked it. She said she would give it 5 stars but she wished it was longer.

I loved the illustrations in this children's book! Mermaid Kenzie - Protector of the Deep is about a young girl whose love of the sea inspires her to protect and clean it. Great message about passion and environmentalism.

Mermaid Kenzie is a beautifully illustrated tale about a little girl, Kenzie, who wants to go to the beach with her mother but does not want to do the required cleaning to earn the outing. Once they are at the beach, she starts to find a lot of garbage out in the water and her mom tells her about how dangerous it is for the animals to eat the plastic. To her mom's surprise and amusement, Kenzie decides she does like cleaning when it is helping animals and starts removing as much trash as she can from the ocean. A sweet story about doing your part to help the environment, the damage caused by consumerism, and the beauty of the natural world.

This book was a miss for me and my kids. The illustrations were beautiful but the grammar was killer and it made it hard to connect with

A sweet story about a girl pretending to be a mermaid and how she learns to protect the earth's resources. Very accessible!

I received an electronic ARC from Astra Publishing House through NetGalley.
Beautiful illustrations support this story of a young girl who cares deeply about taking care of the oceans. Readers see her become a "mermaid" and explore what is happening on the beach and under the water. Watson Sherman presents a clear ecological message to care for our planet. The rhyme scheme is rough at times and does not read smoothly. This affects the overall message as it is distracting to read and have to re-read to follow the story.

This was a really cute story about recycling, but I felt something was missing. It felt like the link wasn't really there for her mermaidness and recycling. It was a little confusing.

This is an incredibly beautifully illustrated picture book. The overall message of how even the smallest can make a huge impact on the environment was wonderful and organically presented. I liked how the characters used “real” dialogue and it wasn’t presented in an entirely perfect way. It added authenticity to the moment. Mermaid Kenzie is great for any child and would be a great book for conversations about conservation, recycling, and protecting oceans.

Kenzie loves the pelican parade, lantern fish, shark teeth and seashells at the beach. She loves pretending to be a mermaid who swims among deep-sea wildlife. One day, though, she's dismayed to discover more than wildlife on the seafloor.⁠
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When Mama tells her how more and more garbage is ending up in the water, Kenzie is determined to do something to help her water-dwelling friends.⁠ The story, paired with vibrant illustrations, is a gentle way to talk with children about littering and other dangers to the environment.⁠
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I really appreciate books that embrace diversity without making it central to the plot (because diversity should be normalized). The author's use of African American vernacular English, paired with a fun story and a relatable main character, achieves this goal beautifully. If your child hasn't had much exposure to that way of speaking, this book is a great way to introduce it.

This story was an absolute treat to read from the moment I opened it up. It is an uplifting story with environmental themes about protecting the ocean.

The MC, Kenzie is a young black girl, which is such a great way to have representation of racial groups in children's books. Also, having a girl as the lead in a science book is fantastic too, since women are very underrepresented in the sciences, especially women of color. Kenzie is adorable and precocious and understands the importance of protecting the ocean. She and her no-nonsense mama spend time walking along the beach, rowing through the sea at night to see the bioluminescence, and snorkeling to pick up plastic in the water. She finds plastic bags everywhere and fears her ocean is going to turn into a plastic stew so she organizes a beach cleanup day with her friends. She is the Protector of the Deep and helps to keep the beaches and waters she loves clean.

The prose flows with simple text. There isn't a whole lot of hard vocabulary, but there are some bigger words that very beginner readers may need help with. More developed readers could easily read this independently. The full page illustrations are vivid and vibrant. They have a cute cartoonish feel which doesn't detract from the science theme. There is a powerful ecological message that many will love. The ocean is crucial part of our environment and we need to do more to prevent it from being damaged. I think all classrooms, especially coastal classrooms should have this in their room and teachers should read this to their students.

The illustrations and pictures in this book is really good and well done. It paints the picture well and shows what the reader is reading. It is beautiful.

The story is a good lesson that would be great for elementary schools for kindergarten or 1st gardens to learn about as a group. I could see a class reading it together. I liked how the main character took her love for something and turned it into something productive. It became a lesson for young children to help the animals and the ocean. The character also had friends that joined in and they all worked together.

All together I thought this book showed a valuable lesson for young children, was well written and the illustrations were well done.