Lilly and Fin
Two merpups, a vegetarian giant octopus, and a small, chubby glowing fish have the underwater adventure of their lives. Will they escape the evil Snorkels' gigantic aquarium?
Lilly and Fin are merpups—mermaid kids—who love to play and explore the caves outside the mermaid city. They aren’t really supposed to leave the city, but that’s what makes it so much fun! Surely all those stories about Two-Legs (you know, humans) and sea monsters are just made up to scare young merpups. Little do they know, a real live human couple is on the hunt for a mermaid to add to their collection of rare sea creatures. If Two-Legs exist, what about sea monsters?
- First published 1998
- Reading age Age 7
- Illustrated by Vivienne To and Cornelia Funke
- Publisher Penguin Random House
Once upon a not too long time ago, there was a couple named Snorkel.
Mr. and Mrs. Snorkel were very rich. Quite unbelievably rich.
They owned a factory for licorice, and a factory for matches, and a lot of oil rigs.
And a bank. And a zoo. And their own TV station.
And there were thousands of other things they didn't even remember they owned.
You're probably thinking, Wow! What did they do with all that money? Did they spend it on their kids?
No. The Snorkels didn't even have kids.
But they had a hobby. A very expensive hobby. An aquarium.
Not just any aquarium. No! It was the biggest aquarium on earth, and it was stuffed to the brim with fish, crabs, sea serpents, and countless other underwater creatures. And the Snorkels had caught every single one themselves.
Even though some of the creatures ended up being eaten by others, the aquarium still became so crowded that the smaller animals had to be moved into jam jars, and those jam jars ended up all over the Snorkel's house — on the stairs, on the bookshelves, on the breakfast table, and even in the refrigerator. (Those were the fish from the North Pole).
And the Snorkels kept going hunting, and they kept bringing back new creatures for their aquarium.
But there was one kind of sea creature they'd been hunting for years in vain. Their collection was still missing a genuine rainbow-scaled, green-skinned, flourescent mermaid.
Mrs. Snorkel could barely think of anything else. And Mr. Snorkel was obsessed about this, too. They searched the seven seas with their lightning-fast submarine, the Sea Devil, and kept bringing back countless new creatures, but the mermaids eluded them.
Mr. Snorkel had even hired dozens of underwater detectives, but they couldn't find any mermaids, either.
The Snorkels were deperate. So desperate that Mrs. Snorkel had chewed the sea-green nail polish off her fingernails, and Mr. Snorkel had a stomach ulcer. Until one fine day ... and with that day, our story begins ...
I always wanted to create a story that was set under water, because at the time I really wanted to draw shipwrecks and fish and coral reefs. With the story about the mermaids Lilly and Fin, I could finally go crazy in that respect!