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Year: 2005
Author: Donna Rathmell, Barbara J. Bergwerf (photography)
Publisher: Sylvan Dale Publishing <http://www.sylvandellpublishing.com/>
ISBN: 0-9764943-0-2
Pages: 32
Price: US $15.95

“Carolina’s Story” is the story, appropriately described as a “photo journal”, of a critically ill loggerhead sea turtle that is nursed back to health by the staff of the Sea Turtle Hospital at the South Carolina Aquarium. Carolina appears to be a “barnacle bill” turtle, emaciated with a heavy barnacle load. The book consists of beautiful, full-color photographs of Carolina’s treatment, recovery and release with one or two sentences on each page in a large easy to read font describing what is going on in simple terms.

The story anthropomorphizes a bit more than I like, describing what the turtle liked and did not like about her treatment, but then the book was not written for me. “Carolina’s Story” primarily targets children aged 4 to 8, which seems appropriate, although some 7 or 8 year olds may find the story a bit basic. The book is definitely appropriate for the younger end of the range, and children
even younger should enjoy looking at the pictures with appropriate descriptions of the action from their parents.

But, enough of what I thought of the book, let’s get to the important reviews: those of my co-authors, who collectively own about 200 books. Most new books are read once and then go in to the rotation. That basically means each book in their collection only gets read once every few weeks, although they do have their favorites. When “Carolina’s Story” First arrived they were very
excited that it was a story about a sea turtle. They are just as biased towards sea turtles as their daddy. So we read the book. Then they insisted that we read it again. And then one more time. I’m not sure that has ever happened before. They also asked for it the next night (only one reading that night) before the book finally went in to the rotation. We own a number of children’s sea turtle books and my impression is that they identified more with this book than any of the others. Their favorite parts of the book were “when the turtle gets released” (5-year old) and “when the turtle gets her shots” (3-year old).

In short, I highly recommend this book to the 3 to 7 year old in your life. Anyone that likes sea turtles should like the book. As an added bonus, the book has three pages of educational material at the end, and a page of other patients at the Sea Turtle Hospital. The educational materials include turtle fun facts, math games and a make-your-own sea turtle craft.

Michael S. Coyne, Isabel C. Coyne and Tyler J. Coyne
SEATURTLE.ORG, 1 Southampton Place, Durham, NC 27705 USA
(Email: mcoyne@seaturtle.org)