The Tail of Emily Windsnap

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2003

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

Emily asks the reader to keep the secret she’s about to share. All her life, Emily has wanted to swim, but her mom has always protested, citing her own fear of the water. Despite her mother’s fear, they live on a boat, which never quite made sense to Emily. Now in seventh grade, Emily finally convinces her mom to let her take a swim class. The minute Emily sees the pool, it calls to her, as if it were “waiting for someone to jump in and set it alive with splashes and ripples” (6). Though she’s never swum before, Emily finds herself gliding effortlessly through the water until her legs feel like they’re being clamped together. She drags herself out of the pool, where the feeling goes away, and she vows not to get back in the water.

At home, Emily spends the evening debating what to do about swim class. She forges a note from her mom to the swim instructor, telling him to let Emily out of class, but writing it makes her realize she needs to learn the truth. After her mom goes to bed, Emily goes for a swim in the ocean, where the weird feeling hits again. At first, she panics, but soon, her missing legs feel right. She ends the chapter by reminding the reader to keep her secret: “I had become a mermaid” (17).

Chapter 2 Summary

Emily swims all night, feeling at home in a way she never has. Near sunrise, she returns to her boat, where her legs come back once she’s out of the water. Later, she wakes from a nightmare about people capturing her. Over breakfast, her mom finds the note Emily forged, and while Emily struggles to explain, her mom asks if Emily is afraid of water. Grateful for the excuse, Emily says she is, and her mom decides to take Emily to a hypnotist to get her over her fear.

Instead of Emily being hypnotized, her mom falls asleep, and Emily stays awake thinking about how much she loved being a mermaid. Emily’s mom dreamt about a gold ship with a marble mast and recites a poem Emily’s never heard before. Later, the lighthouse keeper, Mr. Beeston, arrives for his daily coffee at the boat. Emily’s mom is glad to see him, but Mr. Beeston makes Emily uncomfortable because something about him “makes the boat feel smaller, somehow” (30).

Chapter 3 Summary

Emily goes out again the next night and meets Shona, a real mermaid who doesn’t turn human out of the water. Shona is also 12 years old and attends a mermaid school, which sounds amazing to Emily. When Emily introduces herself, Shona recognizes her last name but can’t remember from where. Instead, she explains the mermaid world and how she wants to be a siren when she grows up so she can help protect the mermaids from fishermen. The girls talk about Shona’s classes in hair brushing and diving, promising to meet up again in a few nights. On her way home, Emily sees Mr. Beeston standing outside his lighthouse, staring into the night. He creeps her out, and as Emily gets back to her boat, she’s thankful “that [she]’d gotten home with [her] secret still safe. For now” (41).

Chapter 4 Summary

Since her mom thinks the hypnotism worked, Emily has to go to swim class when the pool reopens. All day, she dreads it, even more so when the other kids in her class make fun of her for being a showoff. However, swim class has been cancelled due to budget cuts, so the class will take a nature walk instead. Emily pretends to be upset with the other kids, but she’s silently thrilled.

The next time Emily goes out to meet Shona, the mermaid brings Emily to an underwater playground made from human objects like bicycles. Shona invites Emily to mermaid school on Saturday morning if Emily’s parents don’t mind. Emily agrees and explains her dad disappeared when she was a baby. Shona asks why, to which Emily says she doesn’t care because “after what he did to Mom, he can stay wherever he is” (53).

Chapters 1-4 Analysis

Kessler immediately invites young readers into the story by having Emily ask the reader a question directly. This sets the reader up as a participant in the adventure, and the first-person narration, coupled with moments where Emily’s storytelling breaks the fourth wall, makes the tale feel like a shared secret between friends, emphasizing the topics of friendship and secrecy throughout. More secrets are foreshadowed starting in Chapter 1. Emily’s desire to swim and her mom’s fear of the water foreshadow Emily's discovery of her mermaid nature, as well as her family history and the truth about her father. Emily’s two-pronged reaction to her fins starting to form in the pool represents how the change is unsettling but also how Emily feels like her true self with a tail. The rightness Emily felt in the pool motivates her to get back in the water and learn the truth. Since doing so ultimately helps Emily find belonging, family, and friendship, Emily’s character arc focuses on the importance of Having Pride in One’s Identity, one of the book’s major themes.

Emily’s discovery of her half-mermaid identity at this stage in her life also shows the resilient nature of one’s true self—she has been trying to convince her mother to let her swim for as long as she can remember, and at once she understands why this was so innately important to her. Furthermore, the dream Emily’s mom has at the hypnotist in Chapter 2 is the first clue Emily gets that there’s something strange about her mom’s past. Between memory drugs, Emily’s mom recalls bits and pieces of the merfolk world and the emotions she felt for Emily’s dad, showing the complexities of memory as well as how this strong part of her past cannot be fully suppressed. Both Emily’s discovery of her transformation and Emily’s mother’s recurrent memories about her former life support the theme The Resilient Nature of Love and Identity.

Neptune’s self-importance and belief in his own greatness keep him from seeing the truth of the merfolk and human worlds. The merfolk live by the rules they’ve always known and the laws that have been passed down. Since they have never understood anything different, they believe their lives are the only version of how things can be. Neptune has let his position of power stagnate him, in turn stagnating merfolk culture with centuries-old practices such as using sirens to sink ships. Neptune’s unchecked authority speaks to the theme The Relationship Between Identity and Power.

The budding friendship between Emily and Shona in these chapters juxtaposes the human and merfolk worlds, revealing how alike the two are. Before discovering her mermaid nature, Emily felt like she didn’t belong at school, where she struggled to make friends and faced bullies. Similarly, Shona doesn’t have many friends in Shiprock because she is dedicated to her studies, which makes the other merchildren tease her. When Emily and Shona meet, their instant connection shows their shared desire to belong. Emily’s fascination with merfolk school and Shona’s curiosity about Emily’s legs represent how the two worlds have been kept apart and offers an example of how they can come together without violence. Shona’s descriptions of mermaid school leave Emily wanting to learn more about who she is, which pulls her into the mermaid world and allows her to discover the secrets surrounding her past.