Turtle and Tortoise Are Not Friends

When Turtle and Tortoise hatch in the same city zoo habitat, they seem destined to be besties for a good long time--as the zookeeper points out, "they can live to be one hundred years old!" But Tortoise quickly and haughtily declares that they are too different to be friends ("It just wouldn't make sense"). Turtle wimpishly cedes the point, and they hunker down on either side of a small pond as the years pile up. Reiss (How Murray Saved Christmas) dutifully notes the lengthy passages of time to comic effect ("Over the next fourteen years, the turtle and the tortoise had many interesting adventures. But each refused to tell the other about them"). The two are so stubborn and slow-moving that it takes an entire human generation, plus the time it takes to "read the entire Oxford English Dictionary, A to Z, twenty-three times," to realize they can become friends. Digital vignettes by Spires (The Most Magnificent Thing) have a comedic pacing that matches the text's mix of exaggeration and understatement. As the cityscape modernizes behind the zoo enclosure's drama, it becomes clear that some things, from buildings to friendships, just take time. Ages 4-8. (July)

K-Gr 2-When Turtle and Tortoise hatch in the same British zoo pen at the same time, they know they will be the best of friends until just three sentences into their friendship, tortoise discovers that his pen-mate is a turtle, "a horrid beast with rough skin and a hard shell, while I am a handsome creature with a hard shell and rough skin." At that, both stubborn reptiles go to opposite sides of their pen and spend the next 46 years not being friends. Nothing can bring them together-- not learning they might live 100 years, interesting adventures, difficult winters, amazing New Year's fireworks, or being stuck on their backs for 19 years after an ill-fated attempt to play (separately, of course). It isn't until they hear the new zookeeper (son of the original zookeeper) mention that "all tortoises are turtles" that tortoise suggests that they work together to regain their feet and, after cogitating on it for six years, turtle agrees. Soon the two new friends are standing together sharing stories and lettuce. Turtle and Tortoise are given their own voices by way of text bubbles. Spires's photoshop illustrations give the text real life with great facial expressions, sense of place, humor and the perfect use of white space. The passage of time is depicted very subtly and cleverly in the change of the skyline and clothing styles. VERDICT A tale of two animals split by perceived differences that are brought together by a new knowledge of sameness that raises more questions than it answers.-Catherine Callegari, Gay-Kimball Library, Troy, NH