Root Beer Candy and Other Miracles

Written in light and lyrical free verse, Shari Green’s debut novel about the hard and beautiful truths of growing up—and growing into one’s own ability to shape the world—is now back in a new edition.

Eleven-year-old Bailey believes in miracles. She has to; it will take a miracle to keep her warring parents together. This summer they are at a Marriage Counselling camp, leaving Bailey and her little brother Kevin with their estranged grandmother in the island town of Felicity Bay. There Jasper, an eccentric deposed minister-turned-ice-cream-vendor, makes a prophecy that a stranger from the sea will change everything.

In bestselling author Shari Green’s warm and wistful debut, Bailey’s seaside summer is marked by powerful realizations about the strengths and weaknesses of all the people in her life…including herself. When the waves wash ashore a piece of driftwood that looks like a mermaid, Bailey begins to believe that the mermaid is the stranger from the sea. Does her appearance mean that things really will get better in Felicity Bay and in Bailey’s family?