The Little Mermaid

Sabuda continues his series of pop-up adaptations of classic stories (including Beauty and the Beast and Peter Pan) with a gorgeously rendered version of this Andersen tale, which hews to the original source material—don’t look for Flounder or for a terribly happy ending. Like the previous books, there’s a stained-glass quality to the illustrations and pop-ups, which are characteristically intricate and distinguished by a remarkable sense of movement: the prince’s ship extends out toward readers in one scene, storm clouds gathering behind it, while in one of the book’s many mini-booklets, the mermaids move back and forth as they beg her to return to the water rather than risk her life. Ages 6–up. (Oct.)