While preparing for a unit on storytelling, the mermaids of Trident Academy learn of a legendary pirate treasure in their own city and Pearl decides to find it, despite a warning that it is guarded by a ghost.
The merkids hunt for hidden treasure in this Mermaid Tales adventure! When Rocky finds a seaweed scroll that describes an abandoned pirate ship bursting with jewels, the students are tripping over their tails with excitement. There’s only one problem: the treasure is supposedly guarded by pirate ghosts! But a few “silly ghosts” aren’t going to keep prima donna Pearl away from fame, fortune, and “diamonds as big as a merman’s fist.” The hunt is on! Pearl recruits fellow merkids Rocky and Wanda to help her track down the treasure by swimming all the way past Whale Mountain. But when they discover the pirate ship, they hear eerie moans and groans coming from within. What’s making those sounds? Could the pirate ghosts be real? And can the merkids get the jewels before becoming someone’s—or something’s—lunch?
In this start to a new series starring Shelly the mermaid, a classroom conflict is no fun—even when school is 20,000 leagues under the sea. It’s MerGirl Shelly Siren’s first day at a new school, and she is nervous from the tip of her head to the end of her sparkling mermaid tail. How will she ever fit in at the prestigious Trident Academy? Everyone there is so smart and so pretty and so rich. At least she and her best friend, Echo, are in the same class, but so is Pearl, a spoiled know-it-all who only wants to make trouble for Shelly; Rocky, a MerBoy who loves to tease everyone; and Kiki, a shy MerGirl who’s new to Trident City. At first Shelly and Echo have lots of fun: eating lunch together, trying to make grumpy Mr. Fangtooth smile, and joining after-school clubs. But when Shelly and Echo have an argument about their very first school assignment, Pearl gets involved and makes matters worse. Will Shelly and Echo fix their friendship?
Pearl’s fear of sharks is not unfounded—but can she find a way to feel safe in this Mermaid Tales adventure? Late-breaking news from the Trident City Tide: There have been shark sightings in Trident City! No swimming alone! Pearl’s father even hires a Shark Guard to escort her to school. Pearl starts stirring up lots of trouble with anything that has to do with sharks, even denouncing the skeleton Kiki has in her room. And then, to make matters worse, Pearl accuses Kiki of stealing her precious pearl necklace! And though the undersea waters are indeed filled with danger, Pearl just might discover that true friends can provide a sense of safety!
Kiki and her friends get caught up in a code war to try and meet a narwhal in this sparkling Mermaid Tales adventure. All the merkids are super-excited! Two famous narwhal scientists are visiting Trident City with their daughter, Nadine. Best of all, someone is going to get to show Nadine around the city while her parents are in meetings! But who? All the merkids want to be the one, so how are they going to decide who gets to do it? Mrs. Karp, their teacher, decides to organize a code-breaking contest, but with the competition getting fierce, it is more like a code war! Even Kiki, Echo, and Shelly are fighting! Is there a way that everyone can win?
With the help of her fintastic friends, Echo investigates whether or not fairies really DO exist in this sparkling Mermaid Tales adventure. Echo is excited when her Aunt Crabella and Uncle Leopold visit, especially since Aunt Crabella always has amazing stories about all of her many ocean travels. But when Aunt Crabella tells Echo about the Hairy Fairy—a fairy that visits mermaids while they sleep and purposely tangles their hair—Echo is all set to catch the fairy in the act. Shelly and Kiki tell Echo that fairies aren’t real, but Aunt Crabella says she believes they are. And what’s the harm in believing? When Echo can’t seem to catch the Hairy Fairy, she becomes determined to figure out if fairies really do exist! She teams up with Shelly and Kiki and makes “Fairy Juice” (via a recipe from Rocky Ridge) in order to go on a fairy hunt on Trident City’s majestic Sperm Whale Mountain. But what will they find on their fairy hunt? Will all of Echo’s magical fairy dreams come true?
Echo is excited to see her favorite band perform at a classmate's birthday party, but she cannot decide what to do when her best friend is not invited to the party.
Ghoulia lives in Crumbling Manor with her Auntie Departed and spends most of her time playing with Tragedy, her beloved albino greyhound. But things aren’t as easy as they seem for this little zombie girl—all she wants is a real friend. She tries to venture past the manor’s walls, but she can’t hide her pale green skin or the deep purple circles under her eyes. The other children will be afraid of her, and no one will want to be her friend. But when Halloween rolls around, Ghoulia hatches a brilliant plan. All the other, ordinary children will be dressed up like monsters, so Ghoulia can go out into the town and be entirely herself. In the end, all the kids realize that Ghoulia is (almost) just like them and learn that friendship can come in many forms.
The tale begins over three-hundred years ago, when the Fair People—the goblins, fairies, dragons, and other fabled and fantastic creatures of a dozen lands—fled the Old World for the New, seeking haven from the ways of Man. With them came their precious jewels: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls... But then the Fair People vanished, taking with them their twelve fabulous treasures. And they remained hidden until now... Across North America, these twelve treasures, over ten-thousand dollars in precious jewels, are buried. The key to finding each can be found within the twelve full color paintings and verses of The Secret. Yet The Secret is much more than that. At long last, you can learn not only the whereabouts of the Fair People's treasure, but also the modern forms and hiding places of their descendants: the Toll Trolls, Maitre D'eamons, Elf Alphas, Tupperwerewolves, Freudian Sylphs, Culture Vultures, West Ghosts and other delightful creatures in the world around us. The Secret is a field guide to them all. Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues.