Tilly's new adventure by Rhonda N. Garward

A lovely fold-out book will intrigue, delight and educate all readers about the life of a turtle and its dependence on the animals and plants of a reef. Lots of information is given at the end of the book, augmenting that facts gleaned from the storyline of the text. Tilly’s friend, Trev tells her that they are going to find the seagrass because he is hungry.  They ask a passing whale shark where they could find the seagrass and he directs them towards the Great Barrier Reef. They swim past the manta rays and an increasing number of brightly coloured fish. Tilly tells her friend that they have found the reef but he wants to keep going to find the seagrass.  But they come across dead coral and the bodies of some fish and sea animals, and certainly no seagrass. A starfish tells them that this is happening because the water has become too warm.  They swim on to find less contaminated reef and finally the seagrass. Many little turtles swim by and a large cod and a dugong. But something has happened, Tilly has become entangled in a discarded fishing net.  She is washed up on the shore where a group of children find her. She is carefully disentangled and put back into the sea. 

Children will love reading about the dangers in the ocean for the fish that live there and see a positive outcome for the turtle. The background to each page showing aspects of the reef and ocean and the animals that live there invites all readers to look more closely at the detail before their eyes. The flaps reveal some inviting images: the whale shark's tail, the dugong, the manta rays, the potato cod, a group of clown fish. Each will delight readers.

Each double page shows the turtle and the fish swimming through the ocean, then over the degraded reef, then some more intact reef and finally the seagrass. Each time the page is turned, readers will delight in reaching the new page for the details presented in the ocean. A fold out section on the right hand side of the page reveals some of the other animals, and the reef, both in its degraded or healthy form.

A lovely book which informs and delights, a story includes themes for all: conservation, sea life, Great Barrier Reef, and so on.

Themes: Conservation, Great Barrier Reef, Degradation, Pollution, Fish, Turtles.

Fran Knight