Little Pago by Lauren Briggs

Little Pago is a tiny turtle, living on the edge of a shallow reef. He plays in the ocean currents with his friends, plays hide and seek with the seaweed as his cover, and reads in the coral library. After all this activity he is hungry and looks around for things to eat. He finds green sea grass, chewy seaweed, floating plankton and kelp noodles.

But of all of them, jellyfish is the best. It is soft, chewy and just delicious. He trawls over the reef searching for his favourite food. He sees something soft, squishy and delicious. He is about to take a bite when his friend, Solly Stingray calls out to stop, because it is not a jellyfish but a discarded balloon. Pago lets it go and swims off to find his food. He is about to take a bite of something he sees, and Carly Crab calls out to stop. She points out that it is a straw and is inedible.  Pago swims away and finds a mob of jellyfish. He swims towards it and finds that it envelops him, and he cannot get out. He calls to his friends but they are not nearby to help him. He is tossed up by the waves until he lands on the beach. Luckily a young child is there to help Pago out of the plastic bag and return him unharmed to the sea.

This little book will make a good starter to talking about turtles and pollution as the readers see a little turtle in trouble because of the rubbish that finds its way into what should be a pristine place.

A page of information is given at the end of the book which will further inform the readers.

Themes: Turtles, Rubbish, Pollution, Oceans.

Fran Knight