The Real-Life Rescue That Sparked a Sea Change.
By: Mila Vincent and Johanna Luza.
Seven-year-old Mila Vincent, who reviews books with her grandmother, Johannah Luza, hopes One Turtle’s Last Straw is your last straw, too! While it made Mila sad to see how a turtle got very sick from a plastic straw, she’s glad the book taught her not to use plastic straws anymore. She hopes you won’t, either!
One Turtle’s Last Straw
The Real-Life Rescue That Sparked a Sea Change.
Written by Elisa Boxer
Illustrated by Marta Álvarez Miguéns.
Mila: I learned a lot from this book! A little boy throws his drinking straw in a trash can, and the straw ends up in the ocean. A friendly little turtle is swimming and dives to eat something on the ocean floor. But something was in the seawater and it gets stuck in his nose. He coughs and coughs and can hardly breathe.
He starts losing his sense of smell and has a hard time eating. Finally, some marine biologists working on their boat who study sea turtles come along and find him. He is so sick because of the straw in his nose! The biologists remove the straw and make him feel better. They let him go back into the ocean, and he swims away.
That poor turtle almost died. I learned when people throw plastic away, it sometimes goes into the ocean, and sea animals can get very sick from the plastic. It made me sad. I won’t use plastic straws anymore. I don’t think you should, either.
Johannah: What an excellent book, written so kids can understand what the plastic we use daily is doing to our oceans!
The author takes the reader on a journey from how simply drinking from a plastic straw can endanger sea life. The illustrations are colorful and descriptive with lots of emotion. I’d like to see every child read this book. We all need to hear it and choose to act to help our environment!
The name for this sea turtle originates from the color of its shell—an olive-green hue. They are currently the most abundant of all sea turtles.
Their vulnerable status comes from the fact that they nest in a small number of places, and therefore any disturbance to even one nest beach could have huge repercussions on the entire population. Source: https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/olive-ridley-turtle
To learn more about saving sea turtles and the work of Christine Figgener, Ph. D, and her work click here.
