TURTLE IN PARADISE

A world-weary girl is sent to live with family in Key West during the Great Depression.

Times are tough in 1935, and Turtle doesn’t believe in Hollywood endings like her starry-eyed Mama does. When Mama gets a job as a housekeeper for a woman who can’t abide children, Turtle is sent down to Key West, Florida, to live with her aunt’s family. She learns that she has three boisterous boy cousins who, along with their friends, form the Diaper Gang, an enterprising babysitting venture in town. Denied official entry into the Diaper Gang because she’s a girl, Turtle nevertheless spends her days with them, observing the quirks and cultural particularities of the locals, from their colorful jargon and nicknames to the kids’ tendency to run around barefoot. This graphic-novel adaptation of Holm’s acclaimed 2010 novel is perfectly suited to conveying the vibrant local color of Key West as well as the comic pace of Turtle’s adventures with the Diaper Gang. Chapters unfold in vignettelike fashion, building to reveal new information about the history of Turtle’s family that she was unaware of while gradually chipping away at her tough exterior. Turtle’s immediate family presents as White; there is some reflection of Key West’s racial diversity in secondary characters.

A lively adaptation certain to entertain readers old and new.