My favorite part of Melvin and the Boy by Lauren Castillo (Henry Hold, March 2011) is its breathtaking lovely illustrations (acetone transfer with markers and watercolor), which so gently captures a boy and the wild turtle he’s adopted as his own. The boy has always wanted a pet, and when he sees a turtle at the park, he takes him home as his pet. But a turtle doesn’t do the things his friends’ pets do: go for walks, cuddle, and otherwise be a friend, ultimately leading the boy to decide to take the turtle back to his home in the park.
The end of the book has some facts about turtles, and I was not surprised to see a note indicating that it’s illegal to take turtles out of their natural habits. In that sense, it was a strange book: the boy’s parents let him break the law? But, on the other hand, he learned that some animals belong in the wild, not in a home as a pet. As a whole, it is a gorgeous book.
