Losing Turtle

Losing Turtle by Adrienne Frater, illustrated by Cat Chapman (Walker Books)

PB RRP $ 11.95

ISBN 9781921529108

Reviewed by Vicki Stanton

Losing Turtle is a collection of three delightful short stories for emerging readers: Losing Turtle, Top Secret, and Scrambled Eggs. Each of the stories star Sam, an inventive and thoughtful boy who solves his dilemmas in unique ways and with surprising results. Although the stories are simple with carefully selected words and straight forward sentence structure the stories are anything but bland. Sam’s personality shines through and the images of his family and school life that are built up will keep children reading and looking for more. What more could we want in this National Year of Reading!

Cat Chapman’s black-and-white illustrations jump off the page with joy and humour, adding to the reading experience and ensuring that children are never overwhelmed by a page of words.

Walker are to be congratulated for their Walker Stories series for younger readers. The Walker Stories target readership group of young and emerging readers are not generally catered for as well as they might be in the publishing world and titles such as Losing Turtle fills this important niche.