ADELITA

A tiny sea turtle, rescued in Baja California, Mexico, and later released wearing a tracker, surprises the researchers and schoolchildren following her journey by crossing the entire Pacific Ocean.

Rescued when she was the size of a dinner plate, the loggerhead spent 10 years growing in a Mexican research lab until 1996, when a visiting American scientist (a White man) had the idea to attach one of the then-new satellite trackers to her shell and let her go free. A local fisherman who helped him named the turtle for his daughter, Adelita. There is little embellishment to this account; it leaves space for readers and listeners to imagine and wonder what she encountered during her 368-day journey and what finally happened to her after her transmitter stopped near the Japanese coast. The author does allude to the dangers she faced in the ocean, but both words and pictures gentle the circumstances of her original capture, in a fishing net, and her likely similar fate. This is a story with cheerful illustrations and a happy ending. Not only did Adelita demonstrate that adult sea turtles swim vast distances to return to their natal beaches to lay eggs, but Japanese fishermen who had been accidentally catching turtles began to release them from their nets. Sea turtles feature prominently in Goebel’s middle-grade novel, Out of My Shell (2019). Her affection shows.

Science takes another small step toward understanding the natural world.