so-soSy Montgomery's distinctive voice, a mix of perky and reverent, just isn't a match for the overwhelmingly sad tone of the material. If dismal statistics and a flood of accidental, neglectful, cruel, and gory turtle injuries and casualties recounted wasn't enough, references to the COVID-19 pandemic and other hellish aspects of 2020 enter the story to depress the reader further. 1/?
pickI loved this first #AuldLangSpine book from @Chelsea.Poole--hoping to get to more later in the year!
Sy Montgomery, a nature writer for children and adults, chronicles a year spent in New England with diverse people committed to understanding, rescuing, and deeply loving all kinds of turtles. The main focus is on the Turtle Rescue League in Massachusetts, who gently unearth and incubate eggs, and release the hatchlings /1
In Hindu and Buddhist mythology the tortoise Akūpāra carries the world on his back, upholding the earth and sea. From Alaska to the Admiralty Islands in Polynesia, people say the World Turtle hatched the eggs that turned into the first humans. In North America‘s Haudenosaunee, Lenape, and Abenaki creation stories the Great Spirit places the Earth on the back of a huge turtle and many now still refer to the Earth as Turtle Island.
#auldlangspine
“If you help a female across the road, you must handle her with great gentleness. A turtle who feels threatened will often release urine to startle or deter predators, but a nesting mother who has to do this on the way to the nest has to detour for another drink of water.”
I don‘t remember what this had to do with Jesus or the Bible, but when I was a kid my dad, who is a minister, taught kids how to help a turtle cross without getting peed on.
I always have a deep, deep feeling for the turtles. If I could take their pain for them I would. Caring deeply comes at a cost. The word “compassion,” contains within itself its emotion price. The prefix “com” means “with.” The Latin root “pate” means “suffering.” To feel compassion, therefore, is to enter into another‘s suffering. It is the knowledge that there can never be any peace and joy for me, unless there is peace and joy for you.
Turtles are a red-hot commodity in the worthless world of the illegal wildlife trade. Turtle trafficking is networked, clandestine, and lucrative. A single three-striped Chinese box turtle, whose powdered plastron is rumoured incorrectly to cure cancer can fetch $25,000…Sea turtles, box turtles, spotted turtles, snapping turtles—no turtle is safe. Poachers mine scientific data and scour books and newspapers for clues on where to find them.
Most of us think of turtles as being silent but no, some of them are quite talkative. Various species croak, squeak, belt, whine, and whistle. For the velociraptors park in “Jurassic Park,” filmmakers used the sound of turtles having sex. Some species of Australian river turtle nestlings communicate vocally with each other and with their mothers while still inside the egg.
#FirstLineFridays #FLF @ShyBookOwl
Amid all the other homes on the suburban street—white, grey, beige, pale blue, light yellow—this two-story saltbox stands out.
(My first #AuldLangSpine read from @Chelsea.Poole !)
Insatiable curiousity yields some interesting side bars/tangents.
The book showcases important work being done. I think perhaps Montgomery also wanted to focus on a more uplifting, relatable topic, the people helping the turtles, showing that people care even in the worst and most challenging of circumstances. 1w
The sub-theme of linkages to time based on the lifespan of turtles, the aging of the author, is not quite as shoe-horned into the narrative as it might first appear.
⚠️animal abuse, animal death, discussion of COVID-19 pandemic, discussion of transphobia 1w