Kathi Appelt

On the night of the blue moon when mermaids are said to gather on a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico, ten-year-old Keeper sets out in a small boat, with her dog BD and a seagull named Captain, determined to find her mother, a mermaid, as Keeper has always believed, who left long ago to return to the sea.

At an abandoned outdoor movie theater, fifty-five bats perform in a toe-tapping, wing-flapping revue--and await the grand finale.

While his life seems perfectly good as it is, Cardell, a young coyote, learns to tolerate--and even like--the coyote that is courting his mother.