A selkie, or seal woman, falls in love with a fisherman and has two children with him, but must return to the sea when she grows older. Years later, the villagers need money to leave for a better life, and the children remember the tales their mother told them of riches beneath the waves. In order to help everyone, Ffion and Morlo must find their mother and journey under the sea. Selkies feature in many stories from British mythology, and the village is based off of a real place that became uninhabited after WWl. The story is delivered like a folktale, and uses simple but very descriptive language that perfectly captures the atmosphere of a village by the sea. The gemlike watercolors also add greatly to the setting, with light greens and browns, and very deep blues that mix with touches of purple and orange and make the pictures very realistic and textured. The text isn't too small and the language and concepts are within a child's understanding, so the story matches the age range. The book won the 2005 Tir Na N-og Award for Best English Language Book. ( )

In this hauntingly beautiful picture-book, the immensely talented children's author and artist Jackie Morris offers an original fairy-tale, one that is inspired by the selkie traditions of the British Isles, and that offers an explanation for the abandonment of the Welsh village of Maes y Mynydd ("Place of the Mountain"), left to fall into ruin after the First World War. The tale of a fisherman, his selkie bride - won through love, not trickery - and their twin children, Ffion and Morlo, The Seal Children is a story of a family's love, and how the connections created by that love stand the test of both time and separation. Happy for a time, the selkie woman eventually returns to the sea, but although time goes on, she is not forgotten, and when hard times come to the village, and the people long to emigrate to a new land, her children turn to her for help...

This was simply a gorgeous book - if I hadn't already been convinced of Jackie Morris' brilliance as an artist, The Seal Children would have done the trick! - and a moving one as well. I particularly appreciated the fact that this selkie story didn't involve any coercion - does this reflect a different approach to this type of tale, in the Welsh tradition? what exactly is the Welsh tradition, as it concerns selkies? I wish (as ever) that the author had given more information - and that one of the selkie's children joined her in the sea, while another stayed on land. This latter emphasized the dual nature of the children's heritage, and also made for a terribly poignant conclusion. Highly recommended, to anyone who enjoys selkie stories, and to fans of Jackie Morris. ( )