Tag: turtles

Of Time and Turtles

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Montgomery, Sy. Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell By Shattered Shell. Illustrated by Matt Patterson. Mariner Books, 2023.

Reason read: my sister gave this to me as a Christmas gift. I have long since broken my rule about non-Challenge books, especially ones given to me by my sister. She is, after all, the one responsible for the Challenge in the first place.

If you remember (and it is okay if you don’t), my sister gave me another Sy Montgomery book called Soul of an Octopus. This time it is a book about turtles, my absolute favorite creature on the planet. Sy Montgomery and her friend and illustrator, Matt Patterson, spend some time volunteering with the Turtle Rescue League (TRL is not be be confused with the MTV show Total Request Live). This TRL is a Massachusetts-based organization with the sole purpose of rescuing and rehabilitating (when possible) turtles of all kinds. Think of Montgomery’s Of Time and Turtles as a love story; a memoir about her time volunteering with TRL making friends with people and rescued turtles instead of a scientific deep dive into the biological and physiological makeup of the species. She repeatedly falls in love with various snappers and sliders so much so that their stories become an integral part of the narrative. You want to know what happens to each and every rescue.
As an aside, Matt Patterson’s illustrations are fantastic.

As an aside, while I appreciated Montgomery’s openness surrounding transgender and transsexual people (she spent several pages on the topic), if she is going to talk about it, I would have liked to see her dive into the gender specifications and sexual preferences of everyone in her story: Cris, Matt, Michaela, Clint, Emily, and Heidi. I read a good blog

Author fact: Montgomery has written a plethora of books. The only other one I have read is The Soul of an Octopus given to me by, you guessed it, my sister.

Book trivia: Of Time and Turtles has a great collection of illustrations (by Matt Patterson) and a small section of photographs.

Music: Slayer, and “Sweet Home Alabama”.

Turtle Diary

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Hoban, Russell. Turtle Diary. New York: Random House, 1975.

I love Russell Hoban’s work. When Turtle Diary didn’t arrive at the library in time for my surgery I promised myself I would read it anyway – no matter when it came in. It was supposed to be a February book in honor of two things – Hoban’s birth month and a birthday gift to myself (being about sea turtles and all). Instead I read it in one day on March 2nd.

Turtle Diary is alternating diary entries about a singular subject. Two lonely Londoners are captivated by three sea turtles at the London Zoo. William G. and Neaera H.  both write about how lonely they look and what it would be like to free them from captivity. Soon their fascination turns to a mutual obsession and wordlessly they begin to hatch a plan…with the inside help of a senior zoo keeper. What is remarkable about William and Neaera is their ability to rationalize their off-kilter worlds. The way they think, feel, and interact with the relationships around them is poignant and sad.

Favorite lines from William: “There must be a lot of people in the world being wondered about by people who don’t see them any more” (p 16), ” Maybe I’m just one of those people so accustomed to being miserable that they use the material of any situation to fuel their misery” (p 68), and “No place for the self to sit down and catch its breath” (p 95).

Favorite lines from Neaera: “I live alone, wear odds and ends, I have resisted vegetarianism and I don’t keep cats” ( 11), “I’m always afraid of being lost, the secret navigational art of the turtles seems a sacred thing to me” (p 31), and “Polperro seemed to me like a streetwalker asking for money to maintain her virginity” (p 38). Someone else had underlined that sentence, too.

PS ~ this was made into a movie, too.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Russell Hoban: Too Good To Miss” (p 113).

Sleeping Giant

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Sleeping

The Long Beach aquarium (Aquarium of the Pacific) is one of the coolest in the country. We were able to visit them on their ten year anniversary! What makes them so cool? For starters, they are only ten years old. Can’t say that enough. They opened their doors to the public not only on schedule but on budget, too! But, more importantly, they were the very first aquarium to breed weedy sea dragons in captivity. That is just the most awesome thing. Actually, to be honest, the MOST awesome thing is that the Aquarium of the Pacific is home to an Olive Ridley sea turtle. How cool is that? the first time we found her she was a sleeping giant. With her head in a corner and her back to the crowd she slept in private, oblivious to us gawking tourists. Bored, my party moved on and I reluctantly followed. I didn’t want to leave the most beautiful creature in the world, sleeping or not.

I don’t know what made me go back to my sleeping giant. Something told me to visit her again. This time she was a playing swimmer, chasing a dog toy on a string. A group of us stared and laughed as she followed it higher and higher. She looked as though she wore a smile…almost as big as mine.

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