By: Jamie Steinberg
Sweet Brigit lives a bittersweet life. She resides in a little village with her brother Willie, her human father and her Selkie mother. That makes Brigit half-Selkie and her hands show the webbing to prove it, a fact she must hide from everyone. All that changes when someone begins killing seal pups, which brings on a curse that punishes the good and the bad. Can Brigit protect the pups and come to terms with her double life? Grab a seat and dive into the beautiful tale that is The Selkie’s Daughter.
Brigit is a young girl who longs for friends, but the others of her age aren’t very warm and friendly as they suspect her to be the daughter of a Selkie (someone who in water is a seal, but on land – when they shed their skin – takes on human form). Brigit keeps her secret hidden by having the webbing between her fingers cut – a painful experience for her. When Peter moves to town, he and his pup Tolly take to Brigit immediately as he has no knowledge of the rumors about her and her family. Sadly, things take a dark turn for the town when someone begins killing seal pups, which brings the ire of the Selkie community. With scarce food and the town suffering, Brigit’s father goes to great lengths to try to find fish and winds up crashing his ship and stranding him out at sea. Brigit is torn between letting her mom return to her Selkie form to save her dad – something that would keep her mother out to sea for seven years.
Author Linda Crotta Brennan does a beautiful job at weaving Celtic mythology with a tale filled deeply with heart. You immediately wish you could befriend Brigit and let her know that you don’t care what she is, it’s her heart that matters most and, boy, does she have a good one. Readers deeply invest in Brigit’s plight as well and deeply wish you could help save the seal pups. One qualm with this read is that while it wonderfully celebrates Celtic heritage it doesn’t offer pronunciation for names. Also, I wish that we had a better understanding of Brigit’s exact age. How young is too young to start shipping Peter and Brigit?
Minor comments aside, The Selkie’s Daughter is truly a heartwarming story that I think young adult readers will love. Could there be a sequel? Only Brennan knows, but I’d like to see more adventures of our heroine and whatever new friendships they bring.