The Undersea People

by Eve Bunting, Donald Hendricks

Merida, one of a small number of sea people surviving after the destruction of the earth, conquers her fear of sharks during a crisis in the coral city.

Genres: Science Fiction

26 pages, Library Binding

First published June 1, 1980

About the author

Also known as Evelyn Bolton and A.E. Bunting.

Anne Evelyn Bunting, better known as Eve Bunting, is an author with more than 250 books. Her books are diverse in age groups, from picture books to chapter books, and topic, ranging from Thanksgiving to riots in Los Angeles. Eve Bunting has won several awards for her works.

Bunting went to school in Ireland and grew up with storytelling. In Ireland, “There used to be Shanachies… the shanachie was a storyteller who went from house to house telling his tales of ghosts and fairies, of old Irish heroes and battles still to be won. Maybe I’m a bit of a Shanchie myself, telling stories to anyone who will listen.” This storytelling began as an inspiration for Bunting and continues with her work.

In 1958, Bunting moved to the United States with her husband and three children. A few years later, Bunting enrolled in a community college writing course. She felt the desire to write about her heritage. Bunting has taught writing classes at UCLA. She now lives in Pasadena, California.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

The seaweed is always greener... when you punch a goddamn shark on the face.

I guess that's what happened here.

So it's the far future and mankind deliberately evolved to live underwater in a generation or two somehow. (Remember: To Eve Bunting, all science is fiction.) So there's this society of undersea people, as you might have inferred, and they are basically all dead because they forgot to invent farming and instead go out into shark infested waters all the time.

Anyway the main character is afraid of sharks, but her mentally challenged little brother Eela wanders off so she goes and finds him maybe? I dunno I wasn't really listening. It's possible he was eaten. In the end she is still afraid of sharks.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eela, the pest, has a secret. Big deal.

[Swankivy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember this from childhood because my teacher had some science fiction books by Eve Bunting in a little collection in the classroom, and I was drawn to them because, well, that's what little nerds do. The book had line-drawing illustrations and entertaining narration, and I enjoyed reading this story about a group of people who lived under the sea but were dying out because their population was inbred. (The main character's little brother, like so many others, was mentally impaired.) The book opened with the main character fighting a shark with a gizmo of some kind, trying to prove her bravery. The backstory here was that humans of the past realized they were doomed for some reason--I think a natural disaster?--and they decided the only way their species might survive would be if they lived under the sea. They genetically modified some unborn babies and basically threw them into the sea. Five of the ten survived. I remember thinking as a child that even though they acknowledged the inbreeding problem, I don't think five babies would be enough to start a society. It was pretty farfetched. But I still liked the idea and enjoyed reading about the future hope of humanity and the sort of depressing odds it was facing. I think this was one of my first science fiction books that included such a dire outlook that it sort of gave me anxiety for the characters. This was my favorite one in the collection and I read it multiple times.

[Julie Decker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Merida is a humanoid creature descended from modified humans who live in the sea. Her race is dying out because of inbreeding, but there's not much they can do about it because there are very few undersea humans and they also face the dangers of living in a hostile ocean. This imaginative story has a depressing outlook for the future of the characters--it might have been the first story I read as a kid with a heart-crushingly awful set of odds stacked against the species--but it remained character-oriented and took a good look at fear and bravery. Children who like science fiction will be intrigued by this one, and it's nice and short.