Tailee the Talking Salmon — Patrick Hughes

Tailee the Talking Salmon is the exciting story of a salmon's adventures around the southern and western coasts of Ireland. A Middle Reader fantasy novel, Tailee grows a youngster's interest in international themes such as nature's wonders, pollution and shows how people from very different worlds can work in unison. While the specific tale is set in Ireland and inspired by a story in Fairy Legends (1822), this story is personality driven and not ethnocentric. It is a tale of courage, friendship and discovery, as a dapper Tailee wins the cooperation of Red, an old sailor and fisherman while escaping the clutches of angry villagers, works with Lefty, a skeletal sailor who had drowned at sea, plus merboys and enchanting mermaids on their rocky shores. Their mission is to end the reign of Cu Mara, an evil merman who enslaved skeletal sailors to do work so horrible for old salts it cannot be mentioned here. In the process Tailee and Lefty face the underwater world of kelp, pollution and predators, the mermen's cave under the Cliffs of Moher, and visit the mermaid's in their grotto beneath the oceans. The merman's red scullcap comes in handy when Tailee and Lefty must grow a body to go ashore, and the mermaid's silvery cap allows them to sing above the waters on rocky island shores, and helps when they must entice Cu Mara onto Inis Oirr where he discovers his miserable fate.