TURTLE IN PARADISE.

TURTLE IN PARADISE by JENNIFER L HOLM.

Life isn't like the movies, and eleven-year-old Turtle is no Shirley Temple. She's smart and tough and has seen enough of the world not to expect a Hollywood ending. After all, it's 1935, and jobs and money, and sometimes even dreams are scarce. So when Turtle's mama gets a job housekeeping for a lady who doesn't like kids, Turtle says goodbye without a tear and heads off to Key West, Florida, to stay with relatives she's never met. Florida's like nothing Turtle has ever seen. It's hot and strange, full of ragtag boy cousins, family secrets, and even buried treasure! Before she knows what's happened, Turtle finds herself coming out of the shell she's spent her life building, and as she does, her world opens up in the most unexpected ways.
...... Outer back cover.

FIRST SENTENCE (Chapter 1): Everyone thinks children are sweet as Nesco Wafers, but I've lived long enough to know the truth: kids are rotten.

MEMORABLE MOMENT (Page 28): Beans cut him off. "First rule of the Diaper Gang is you gotta know the rues, Buddy."
"But I'm only four!" Buddy cries in frustration. "My head can't hold that many things!"

MY THOUGHTS: Set at the time of the depression in America's Key West Turtle In Paradise is largely a gentle historical read with an adventurous twist which though aimed at those aged 8 to 12 I also found enjoyable and informative.

A wonderfully sweet and funny book (a potential 'classic' of the future?) with just the right amount of adventure to make for perfect bedtime reading, it was however the extremely colourful characters and the fact that the feisty and adventurous Turtle who, along with her male cousins, members of the all boy babysitters known as the Diaper Gang, were not the usual male/female stereotypes that made this such a memorable read for me.


KEEP IT OR NOT?: Along with an Amazon voucher and a copy of The Secret DMS Files Of Fairday Morrow (see my review HERE) I received this as part of a giveaway win and as much as I enjoyed it I will be passing it onto a younger reader who will perhaps appreciate it more.

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