A turtle hatches from her egg and immediately her life is in danger – we know that has always been that way but how have humans made the dangers even more numerous?

Tilly’s Reef Adventure by Rhonda N. Garward is a wonderful book – both illustrations and story engage young children from start to finish and gives them so many different ideas for questions they can ask.

The main character in this story is Tilly, and she is a new turtle, born with an instinct to survive.

She escapes from crabs, birds and barracudas but it is the one thing that she wasn’t prepared for that nearly kills her – a plastic bag!

Luckily for her there are some caring humans around who help her out of the bag as they continue to pick up rubbish along the beach.

This story is perfect for young children as there is no doom and gloom but there is hope. There is empowerment in the illustration of the young children on the beach helping Tilly, there is wonder on each page as you see what each creature looks like and where they live in the ocean and there is amazement as you read through the facts about each creature at the end of the book

With a single use plastic bag ban in place now we really need to work on banning all single use plastics as this devastation will continue to happen the larger the population grows and the more we consume convenience foods and products. Tilly’s Reef Adventure will show you that the ocean is a beautiful place and we really all can make a difference by picking up our rubbish and even better – learning to live without it!

So what else can you do with this book?

STEM

Design an app that helps people to make choices between single use plastic and recyclable and reusable items. Make sure it shows people the convenience factor, environmental impact, financial impact and health impact.

SUSTAINABILITY

Investigate the Great Barrier Reef and choose some different types of animals to investigate – perhaps one from the final pages of the book in the information section. Work out how plastic might effect these animals.

LITERACY

Choose an animal who lives in the reef and write some information about them from their perspective – using the end pages as a guide.