Old Town resident Ellen Bryan Obed has a son who is 22 years old — the same age she was when she wrote “Borrowed Black, A Labrador Fantasy,” a children’s book first published almost 20 years ago.

Since then, the book has taken on a life of its own. Like a child growing up, it has forged its own alliances with strangers, been adopted by admirers, and acquired a resume independent of its creator.

The story of an otherworldly creature who borrows from nature, it has become an international best seller, printed in six different languages. It has been turned into lyrical drama by a Canadian graduate student, and modernized into an environmentalist statement by high school actors in Nova Scotia.

Obed knew for sure that “Borrowed Black” had struck out on its own when the daily newspaper in Ottawa, Canada, featured a front-page photograph of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson reading it to a group of children.

This week, “Borrowed Black” will visit Maine — and Obed — when the respected Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia performs its stage adaptation of the story Thursday at the University of Maine at Machias and Friday at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono.

The author, whose other books include “Wind in My Pocket” and “Little Snowshoe,” will visit local elementary schools before and after the Orono show to talk with students about “Borrowed Black” and the performance.

The local visit marks the start of a six-week East Coast tour by the Mermaid Theatre, to include a week at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. It will be the fourth time in two years the company has traveled with the show, defined by black light, fluorescent color, fantastic puppets and music.

“It’s like `Borrowed Black’ madness down here — we’ve almost sold out,” Stage Front Director E.J. Hampson said last week of the shows in Machias, matinees to be packed with student audiences. “This is really turning into a big event.”

Decades before the fanfare, when the book was nothing more than a poem in progress, Obed sensed a special resonance about it.

Back then, the young woman was just discovering the beauty of Labrador, where she would live and teach school for 10 of her 15 years in Canada. She returned to Maine with her children 10 years ago.

Her earliest trips north were with her uncle Robert Bryan, the “Bert” in Marshall Dodge’s “Bert and I” records. A Yale Divinity School graduate and a pilot, he ministered to the people of the province for years with the Quebec-Labrador Mission Foundation.

Raised in Waterville, Obed studied biology at the University of Maine and first fell in love with the plant life of Atlantic Canada.

“Of anything I’ve written, that was the one where I felt something else was happening, that I was doing something bigger than the story,” Obed said. “When I went to Labrador, the images from every angle were so sharp, they pierced you. … It was an amazing bombardment, and it went right to the core of whatever artist was in me.”

The story concerns Borrowed Black, a supernatural character who has created his body by borrowing from nature and his neighbors near an isolated inlet. His borrowed parts — seaweed, shells, a gull’s beak, driftwood — are held together by the wind, which he keeps in a sack.

One day, he goes too far and borrows the moon from the sky. He accidentally drops it, and it breaks into pieces. The coast is plunged into darkness and confusion for 17 seasons, until a brave band of characters rides in on the back of a whale to confront him.

According to Jim Morrow, Mermaid Theatre designer, puppet maker and director, the visual “bombardment” that inspired the tale made a vivid cast of characters for the stage.

“It was perfect for us, because it’s filled with magical and fanciful and unusual creatures,” he said. “They’re marvelous characters living in a dark world.”

Three very busy actor-puppeteers keep the show moving, providing voices for the characters and narrating the story. Morrow said the black light used to set the mood for the play allows “some unusual conventions” in the relationships between puppets and puppeteers.

Sunday, at the last rehearsal before the tour, Morrow said he had been busy reworking an entire scene. Constant tweaking of details and shifting of layers keep the project new, even after more than 120 performances, he said.

The same details and layers make the show intriguing for adults as well as children.

“The play is somewhat sophisticated — we don’t play down to children,” he said. “I think there’s enough in the story and the language, and the visuals, that’s exciting for adults.”

Obed said Morrow’s work has been capable and imaginative. In developing the production, he ran decisions by the author during a “lively” collaborative process that turned up only one real difference of opinion, Obed said. (“I got my way,” she added with a laugh.)

Hopefully, children who know the story well won’t be as disturbed by changes as her son, who saw an early stage version when he was 5 or 6 years old. “How could they ruin the book?” he demanded of his mother, who remembers his reaction with amusement.

“The Mermaid Theatre is a whole different arena,” Obed said. “They’re internationally known, known at the Kennedy Center. When I heard they were going to do it, I sat back and said, `This will be interesting.”‘

“Borrowed Black, A Labrador Fantasy” will be performed by the Mermaid Theater of Nova Scotia at 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the University of Maine at Machias and at noon and 7 p.m. Friday at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono. Additional shows are scheduled for April 9 and 10 at the Waterville Opera House.