Sea Turtles

Sea Turtles is an excellent book with great photographs outlining the natural history, biology, and conservation of the world's sea turtles. The authors make an effort to comment on all the sea turtles of the world (seven species), and add some information on salt water crocodiles, marine iguanas, and sea snakes. Factually, the material is very good, and presented for a 3rd-4th grade reading level, with difficult or unique words spelled phonetically in the text. Page 32 has a large photograph of two green sea turtles touching "noses"; the legend reads "A female sea turtle mates with a male before coming ashore to lay her eggs. Mating takes place underwater." These turtles certainly are not mating! It seems a bit prudish to have such a erroneous legend to go with this photograph... any nature show on television shows giraffes, lions, and cranes mating. This would have been a great opportunity to indicate how male and female sea turtles are distinguished, and how males compete with one another for access to females. In addition, on page 12, a scuba diver seems to be touching a resting sea turtle... widely considered a no-no. And there was a great opportunity here to have a picture of "sea turtle ecotourism" as a new industry that gives value to sea turtles for existing! These issues aside, I enjoyed this book, and will use it when I give talks to children in elementary school. I like to leave a book behind so that kids can continue to explore the topic of sea turtles.

Your whole family will enjoy this stunning book. From the photos to the information, one and all in the family will enjoy...