SPAquamarine

 **Aquamarine** By: Alice Hoffman



--- **Characters**

**Aquamarine:** The youngest of seven mermaid sisters. She is sixteen years old. She always gets what she wants. She comes off very rude. She is a hopeless romantic. The more she is out of the water, the more her gills dry up and fall off. Aquamarine is supernatural. She desires for romantic attention of Raymond, and seeks the girls help to get it.


 * Claire: ** Is best friends with Haley, always has been. They are neighbors. Claire is set to move to Florida with her grandparents. They are both dreading the day she must move away from her best friend.


 * Haley: ** Is Claire's best friend and neighbor. She is extremely sad Claire is moving away in August.

**Raymond:** He is a good-looking teen boy who works at the concession stand at the Capri Beach Club, where Claire and Haley go every summer. Before the Capri became deserted and run-down, Raymond would have swarms of girls surrounding him and vying for his attention.

** AQUAMARINE ** media type="youtube" key="6-ZaXiQMmkg" height="315" width="560" align="center"

**In 2006, Fox 2000 Pictures came out with a film based on the novel, also titled __Aquamarine.__ ****The trailer for the film is above. It stars, Sara Paxton, Emma Roberts and JoJo. The film's IMDB page can be found [|Here] **

The t

---

[|The myth of Mermaids] ** Check out the above link for some background information on the myth of Mermaids! **

- //**More About Mermaids**//

1) The earliest known mermaid legends come from Syria around 1000 B.C. where the Syrian goddess Atargatis dove into a lake to take the form of a fish, but the powers there would not allow her give up her great beauty, so only her bottom half became a fish and she kept her top half in human form.

2) As myths tend to do, the story changed over time and Atargatis became mixed with Syrian goddess Ashtarte, who is generally considered the counterpart to Greek mythology's [|Aphrodite]. Though Aphrodite is rarely portrayed in mermaid form, this evolution of mermaid mythology is what led to Aphrodite's role in [|the mythology of Pisces], which clearly has roots in Syrian mythology.

3) Later tales in the mythology of mermaids stem from Homer's epic "The Odyssey", where some mythologists believe [|the Sirens] to have been in mermaid form. This was an extremely popular version of the mermaid throughout history. Many popular tales including legends from the British Isles and the famous Arabian Nights tales identify mermaids in exactly this fashion. In these myths, mermaids would sing to men on ships or shores nearby, practically hypnotizing them with their beauty and song. Those affected would rush out to sea only to be either drowned, eaten, or otherwise sent to their doom.

4) The evil-intentioned mermaid is not the only way these creatures were seen as dangerous. Some believed that even well-intentioned mermaids would cause great danger to men who believed they saw a woman drowning and would dive into the waters to save them. Other tales suggest that mermaids either forgot or didn't understand that humans could not breathe underwater, and they would pull them down into the depths of the sea, accidentally drowning them in the process. In the modern mythology of mermaids, however, this is rarely the case.

5) Today these beings are more likely to be seen as innocent and sweet, if not helpful in many cases to human kind. Much of the modern interpretation of mermaids can be credited to the most famous tale in all of mermaid mythology - Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid" and the subsequent Disney movie of the same name.

[|Source]

**Book Summary** Aquamarine is about two young girls, Clarie and Haley. They are best friends. Claire is set to move away to Florida with her grandparents at the end of the summer. Both girls have been going to the Capri Beach Club every summer, for years. The club has become rundown and people no longer go there, except the girls. They have fond memories of what the club used to be like with plenty of people. There is an older boy named Raymond who works the food concession stand at the club. During the times that the Beach club used to be busy, Raymond would be flocked with girls adorning him. As the book continues, the girls are fighting against time, each day trying to make the most out of it at the beach club, until the end of August when Clarie must move and Haley loses her best friend and neighbor. One day, they are called to adventure. There is a terrible storm one day and when the girls return to the club, the following day, the pool is full of seaweed and other objects. The girls make a discovery, Aquamarine. Aquamarine is a beautiful mermaid with hair that has an aqua color woven into it. The mermaid is standoffish and spoiled. Her scales peel and fail off the longer she is out of the water. The girls tell Aquamarine she must go home. She refuses because she has noticed Raymond at the snack bar. She begs the girls to help her, she claims she is in love. The girls offer much resistance but they finally agree to help her. They tell Raymond they have a cousin in town and he must have dinner with her, he reluctantly agrees. The girls construct a beautiful dress for Aqua to wear. To cover up the fact that Aqua does not have legs, the girls take a wheelchair from Claire's garage to have her sit in on her date with Raymond. The girls devise every details of the date, including the table and food and drink. The two have an amazing time. After the evening, the girls return Aquamarine to the pool and have a sleepover, one last time, even with no furniture in the house. Claire leaves the following day, both girls see Haley's new neighbor and Haley vows she could never replace Claire, no matter the distance.

---


 * ABOUT ALICE **

Alice Hoffman was born in New York City on March 16, 1952 and grew up on Long Island. After graduating from high school in 1969, she attended Adelphi University, from which she received a BA, and then received a Mirrellees Fellowship to the Stanford University Creative Writing Center, which she attended in 1973 and 74, receiving an MA in creative writing. She currently lives in Boston.

Hoffman’s work has been published in more than twenty translations and more than one hundred foreign editions. Her novels have received mention as notable books of the year by //The New York Times//, //Entertainment Weekly//, //The Los Angeles Times//, //Library Journal//, and //People Magazine//. She has also worked as a screenwriter and is the author of the original screenplay “Independence Day,” a film starring Kathleen Quinlan and Diane Wiest. Her teen novel //Aquamarine// was made into a film starring Emma Roberts. Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in //The New York Times//, //The Boston Globe Magazine//, //Kenyon Review//, //The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest//, //Harvard Review//, //Ploughshares// and other magazines.


 * === Novels ===
 * //Property Of// (1977)
 * //The Drowning Season// (1979)
 * //Angel Landing// (1980)
 * //White Horses// (1982)
 * //Fortune's Daughter// (1985)
 * //Illumination Night// (1987)
 * //At Risk// (1988)
 * //Seventh Heaven// (1990)
 * //Turtle Moon// (1992)
 * //Second Nature// (1994)
 * //[|Practical Magic]// (1995)
 * //[|Here on Earth]// (1997)
 * //Local Girls// (1999)
 * //The River King" (2000)//
 * //Blue Diary// (2001)
 * //The Probable Future// (2003)
 * //[|Blackbird House]// (2004)
 * //[|The Ice Queen]// (2005)
 * //Skylight Confessions// (2007)
 * //The Third Angel// (2008)
 * //[|The Story Sisters]// (2009)
 * //The Red Garden// (2011)
 * The Dovekeepers (2011) || === Young adult novels ===
 * //[|Aquamarine]// (2001)
 * //[|Indigo]// (2002)
 * //[|Green Angel]// (2003)
 * //Water Tales: Aquamarine & Indigo// (omnibus edition) (2003)
 * //The Foretelling// (2005)
 * //Incantation// (2006)
 * //Green Witch// (2010) || === Children's books ===
 * //Fireflies: A Winter's Tale// (illustrated by Wayne McLoughlin) (1999)
 * //Horsefly// (paintings by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher) (2000)
 * //Moondog// (with Wolfe Martin; illustrated by Yumi Heo) (2004) ||

RETRIEVED FROM: [|Alice Hoffman's Webpage]
**AQUAMARINE**: A REVIEW Aquamarine is perfect for adolescents. Claire and Haley depict the struggles young people face as they transition from childhood to adulthood. They face external forces that impact their lives (the physical relocation of Claire), having to help a supernatural force in Aquamarine and the Romanticism that surrounds Aqua and Raymond. The novel is all about growing up and dealing with change. The novel is excellent for young girls looking for characters to relate to, and learn from. Hoffman uses the changing of the seasons to move along the story.