This book is part of the ‘Nature Storybooks’ series produced by Walker Books. This non-fiction series attempts to teach young children about the lives of animals through the eyes of just one animal in that species. In ‘One Tiny Turtle’ Nicola Davies follows one turtle through to adulthood. 

Review In ‘One Tiny Turtle’ readers follow a Loggerhead turtle from it’s early years until the point at which it lays its own clutch of eggs. The one theme that runs throughout this book is that we know very little indeed about sea turtles. Nicola Davies make this clear by making the Loggerhead turtle a creature of some mystery. The first few years of it’s life are spent hidden in shoals of seaweed before disappearing into the open seas for the best part of thirty years. It is only when she appears on the beach to lay her eggs that we see her again.

One of the things that I like about this whole series is the lack of sentimentality in the text, an obvious temptation when writing about animals for children. Nicola Davies does not gloss over the dangers that are faced by baby turtles both on land and in the water. Neither does she go for the “nature red in tooth and claw” approach either as some might find this, at this point in their reading lives, unnecessarily upsetting. One thing that I thought was missing was the dangers presented to sea turtles by human beings. Davies does mention that artificial lights can disorientate baby turtles but this is put across more as an inconvenience rather than a threat.

There is an accompanying CD that goes with the book. It contains a reading of the book by Stephen Tomkinson along with extra material. This seems to me to be a useful addition to the book as it means that those who are struggling with reading can listen and read at the same time. For those more able children then they can take their learning further with the extra facts that the CD provides.

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2008-08-19