Turtle in Paradise

                           by

            Jennifer L. Holm

                             Newbery Honor Book (2011)

Holm, J. (2010). Turtle in paradise. New York, NY:

Random House.

In this charming book, an eleven-year-old girl named Turtle loves the funny pages, including the comic strip Little Orphan Annie.  I wonder if she ever notices how much her own life mirrors that of the other little girl with curly red hair and no pupils.

           

 Both girls live during the Great Depression.  Like her comic strip heroine, Turtle is an “orphan” of sorts.  She never knew her father; and when her mother gets a job as a cleaning lady for a rich woman who hates children, Turtle has to move to Key West to live with relatives she’s never met.  In a way, her new Florida home is like Annie’s orphanage since Turtle’s new neighborhood is filled with scruffy little boys who call themselves the “Diaper Gang.”  Both girls have pets whose names begin with “s”:  Annie has a dog named Sandy and Turtle has a cat named Smoky.

 

Annie’s life goes from rags to riches when she’s adopted by Daddy Warbucks, and so does Turtle’s when she and her Diaper Gang find a pirate’s buried treasure.  Just as Annie has con artists who want to take advantage of her new-found wealth, the man who marries Turtle’s mother and promises them both a wonderful new home turns out to be a cook who steals Turtle’s treasure and runs off to Cuba.  But in the end, both little girls end up with families who love them, and that’s the best treasure of all.  The morale of both stories is the same:  “The sun’ll come out tomorrow!”       

PICTURE SOURCES:

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