THE VOYAGE OF TURTLE REX

In a life-cycle arc paralleling the one in Cyrus’ Tadpole Rex (2008), a tiny prehistoric ancestor to modern sea turtles hatches from a buried egg, scuttles across a beach into the sea, survives multiple hazards to grow into a mighty two-ton Archelon and then in season returns to shore to lay a clutch of her own. Injecting plenty of drama into his beach and sunlit undersea scenes with sudden close-ups and changes of scale, the illustrator vividly captures the hatchling’s vulnerability as she passes with her sibs beneath a towering T. Rex only to discover a world of toothy predators beneath the ocean’s rolling surface. And even full grown, though she can glide unheeding past sharks and even plesiosaurs, an encounter with a mosasaur “massive and dark: / muncher of archelon, / gulper of shark” sends her sliding hastily down to concealment in the billowing bottom sands. Like its subject, the rhymed text moves with grand deliberation, carrying the primeval story line to a clever transition between that ancient era and ours: “Gone is that sea and the creatures it knew. / Archelon. Mosasaur. Pterosaur, too. / Gone is the plesiosaur’s clam-cracking smile… / but full-body helmets are still in style” as “shells of all fashions continue to girdle / the middle of many a tortoise and turtle.” Never has time travel been so easy or so immersive. (author's note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)