Hannah Gold (text) and Levi Pinfold (illustrator), Turtle Moon, HarperCollins, October 2024, 336 pp., RRP $17.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780008582081
This is a deeply personal middle-grade novel from Gold, whose eco-adventure stories include The Last Bear which won The Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2022. In Turtle Moon, she uses her own experience of infertility to background the story of Silver – the only child of parents desperate for and unable to have a second.
Silver travels with her parents to a turtle rescue centre in Costa Rica, in large part as a reset for her mother who is unravelling after years spent trying and failing to conceive a second child. This background allows readers to empathise with Silver who can’t help wondering why she isn’t enough for her parents.
With her parents emotionally unavailable, Silver quickly befriends local boy, Rafi, and he admits her to his secret Turtle Agency Protection Society. Together they find and help to save the rare and precious eggs of a leatherback turtle. The eggs are brought to the turtle rescue centre in a bid to keep them safe from poachers. After an attempted theft, Rafi hides a tracker in one of the ‘empty’ eggs. During a fierce storm, the eggs are successfully stolen, and Silver and Rafi use the tracker to follow the poachers. They trek through the jungle, putting themselves in grave danger.
I adored this novel which managed to be a fast-paced eco thriller at the same time as a deeply moving exploration of a family dealing with an often-unspoken-of grief. Extra points for Rafi’s adorable pet sloth, Speedy.
Highly recommended.
Reviewed by Heather Gallagher
