Welcome to the 2026 Back to School Blog Tour event. This year, I’ve decided to heavily focus on book reviews to give a fresh look at books that can sweep your child into the world of reading. Each day this week, I’ll be featuring a new book and review ranging from picture books to middle readers. Please bookmark and check back each day to find out about a new book. Like what I’m talking about? Please subscribe!
For the first book review, I’ve chosen a beautiful drawn picture book with a mermaid at its center. “Penny Lane in Florence” is a journey of a mermaid dreaming to become an artist. It’s written and illustrated by the author, Sarah Arias.
Penny Lane has heard the legend of the magical hat given to any aspiring artist in Florence that has real talent. But trying to find the hat is the hard part. Along her journey, she’s helped by flamboyant Italians, a mysterious mouse, her animal friends and her own intuition. Will she be able to find the hat? Or is it something to be earned?
The one thing that strikes me about this book is the beautiful, whimsical artwork. It is amazing! A whole world of fantastical friends and creatures accompany Penny Lane on her adventure. The artwork keeps you anchored in her quest. I really enjoyed seeing the interactions and comical betrayal of her animal friends. It creates a fantastic world of fantasy to dive into.
The book is also divided into chapters to make it easy for beginning readers to join in. It’s a great way to help introduce the chapter structure in stories. There is the strong theme of finding the artist within which goes well with combining literature and art for reading units.
As far as the plot, Penny seems to find the hat within herself and her artwork which the whole story leads to easily. It is very predictable, which any children’s book should be to an extent. But I think the moment of the discovery could have been more dramatic then nonchalant as it’s shown in the book. A magical moment of self-discovery might have been lost, or it just became less important to her at the end, maybe symbolizing the journey being more important than the hat itself.
Overall, I found it to be a fun, fantasy story to help inspire children to not give-up on their artistic impulses. It does lend itself to the idea of exploring your artistic side and less to trying to find the recognition of being a real artist. I did relate to the action of burying myself in pillows when feeling the artistic rejection or failure. That’s relevant at any age. But that drive to keep going has to be intrinsic, which is delightfully illustrated and told throughout the book.
Children with artistic interest will enjoy this mermaid led adventure in self-discovery.
“Penny Lane in Florence” is available at Amazon.com as a print hardcopy or ebook. It’s recommended for ages 4-8.
Bookmark this blog and return tomorrow for another book review. Please leave in the comments if you enjoy this week of reviews. It is truly a labor of love to help connect teachers, parents and readers to fabulous Indie children’s authors and their books.
-Tiffany Turner
Editor/Head Writer of the Indie Children’s Authors Connection Blog
