The Little Mermaid a personalised book with your child as the hero

Far out at sea, where the water is as blue as cornflowers and as clear as glass, and deeper than any anchor can reach, the Sea King lived in a palace of coral and shells. He had six daughters, and the youngest was the little mermaid. Like her sisters, she had no feet, only a shimmering tail that flashed silver and green when she swam.

The little mermaid was a quiet, curious child. While her sisters played among the sea horses, she tended her own coral garden, and she collected curious things that had fallen from the world above. In a grotto behind her garden she kept them all: a brass buckle, a tortoiseshell comb, a spoon, a little bell, and one leather shoe that nobody could explain.

"What is it for?" she asked her grandmother, holding up the shoe.

"People wear them on their feet," said her grandmother, "to walk about on land."

"Feet," said the little mermaid dreamily. "I'd love to see what feet are for."

"When you are fifteen," said her grandmother, "you may rise up to the surface and see for yourself."

At last her fifteenth birthday came. The little mermaid rose up through the water, all the way to the top, and put her head out into the evening air for the very first time. The sky was pink and gold, and close by lay a great ship lit up with lanterns like a floating town. There was music on deck and people dancing, and a young sailor stood at the rail, laughing with his friends.

The little mermaid could not stop watching. But as night fell, the wind began to rise. Black clouds rolled across the stars, the waves grew higher and higher, and a storm broke over the ship. The masts cracked, the sails tore, and with a great lurch the young sailor was thrown into the sea.

The little mermaid did not stop to be frightened. She dived after him, caught hold of him, and kept his head above the waves. All night long she swam through the storm, her tail glinting in the dark water, and when morning came she pulled him safely towards the rocks and laid him on the soft sand of a little bay.

He was breathing, but his eyes were still closed. The little mermaid sat beside him and sang to him softly until she heard voices coming down the cliff path. Then she slipped back into the water before he opened his eyes, and hid behind a rock to watch. People came running and helped him up, and he looked all around him, puzzled, as if he were searching for someone.

From that day on, the little mermaid thought about the land all the time. She wanted to walk on the sand and climb the cliffs and see the sailor again. At last she made up her mind. She swam down, past the last of the light, to the cavern of the sea witch, where the kelp grew thick and dark and old bones lay on the sand.

"I know why you've come," said the sea witch. "You want legs. I can give you a day on land, from sunrise to sunset. But I want something in return, something you love. I'll take your voice."

The little mermaid thought of the sailor, and the song she had sung to him on the sand.

"No," she said. "I won't give you my voice. If I go up there, I want to be able to talk to people. But I'll give you something else. Nobody ever comes to visit you down here, do they?"

The sea witch was quiet for a moment. "No," she said at last. "Nobody ever does."

"Then here's my bargain," said the little mermaid. "Every month, when the moon is full, I'll come down here and sing to you, and tell you everything I've seen. For as long as you like."

Nobody had ever offered the sea witch anything like that. It was a braver bargain than she had expected, and she accepted it.

"Swim to the shallows at sunrise," she said. "And come home before the sun touches the water."

At sunrise the little mermaid lay in the shallows, and her shining tail began to change. In a rush of bubbles, from the tip upwards, it turned into two legs, with two feet and ten toes. She stood up, wobbled, sat down with a splash, laughed, and stood up again. Then she walked up on to the sand on her own two feet.

What a day it was. She walked along the beach and climbed the cliff path, and there at the top, looking out to sea, stood the young sailor.

"Good morning," said the little mermaid.

The sailor turned round, and his face lit up. "That voice," he said. "I've heard it before. Somebody sang to me on the sand, the morning after the storm. Was it you?"

"It was," said the little mermaid, and they were friends at once.

He showed her everything: the fishing boats, the market, the bakery, the dogs that wagged their tails. In the afternoon a fiddler played on the sand, and the little mermaid danced barefoot with the sailor and his friends, round and round, until she was out of breath. And at last she found out what feet were really for.

But all too soon the sun began to sink, and its edge touched the water. The little mermaid knew she had to choose: stay up here on the land, or go back down to her own family.

"Will you come back?" asked the sailor.

"Whenever the sea is calm," she said, "come down to the rocks, and I'll be there." Then she ran into the waves.

As the moon rose, she swam home to her family, and the sea turned her legs back into a shining tail. Her sisters crowded round to hear about her day, and her father hugged her tightly. When the moon was full, she swam down to the sea witch's cavern, just as she had promised, and sang her the song of the fiddler on the sand.

And on calm evenings after that, if you sat on the rocks of that little bay, you might hear a voice singing out over the water, and see a young sailor sitting on the rocks, singing back.