«Wet Magic» by Edith Nesbit

Wet Magic Edith Nesbit — Four siblings travel to the seashore for a holiday. One of them accidentally summons the sister of a mermaid, captured by a circus; and the four children decide to try and save her… What follows is a fantastic and adventurous ride, full of challenges for the children in the underwater world of the mermaids!

Well, I keep looking for a palette cleanser. Although instead of a bad taste, I want to scrub away reality. And the palette is in fact my anxious, exhausted brain. I keep looking for books that will, like, move me physically from this space to another. Books that will wash everything away.

Edith Nesbit did that for me so much when I was a kid, so I sort of had the idea to return to something reliable rather than try something new? And it sort of worked. I love her witty writing and clever characters. I adore the worlds she builds and her approach to writing about magic and the occasional meta details about stories and fairy tales. I love her ability to craft delightful, utter nonsense.

This one was always my favorite — a story about four children (and a tagalong friend) who rescue a captured mermaid. They are taken to her underwater kingdom and accidentally start a war with other oceanic creatures, which is a lot more delightful and a lot less scary than it sounds. I loved this one when I was a kid because I loved the sea and always secretly hoped I was actually a mermaid and would return home one day, like the well-adjusted super-reader that I was.

Here's the thing: it didn't really hold up to my adult eyes. I still love it, and always will, but I enjoyed it more now from the perspective of: oh wow, she didn't just write tropes — she developed them. She originated them. Instead of feeling the pull of escape the way I did as a kid, I felt appreciation for her craft and for the influence she had on the fantasy genre. Which is not to say it was a bad reading experience, or a disappointment (not at all!), it was simply different and unexpected.