Mermaids Fast Asleep by Robin Riding
Published by Feiwel & Friends on April 9th 2019
ISBN: 1250076358
Pages: 26
Goodreads

Mermaids Fast Asleep is a rhyming book that shows a young girl camping by the water. The text of the book takes the form of her wondering about the mermaids that might be below, also getting ready for bed. The text flows fairly smoothly and rhymes well, with a refrain of the couplet “Way down deep, way down deep/ Are there mermaids fast asleep?”. Illustrations show pastel digital paintings of mermaids of many different skin, hair and tail colors. The color palette gives the illustrations a dreamy quality that compliments the tone. There are two instances where the text mentions a specific color that doesn’t appear in the illustrations (“golden eyes” but all characters are drawn with small black ovals for eyes).

A solid purchase for picture book collections, especially where mermaids are in high demand (or where all current mermaid books have mostly white characters).

Reviewed by Sarah Cropley, Scarborough Public Library.