Alfie

When Nia is given a pet turtle for her sixth birthday, the little girl takes Alfie to her heart, sharing all of her activities with him. His seeming unresponsiveness sees a falling off in her attentiveness, until the day of her seventh birthday, when he goes missing. Where can he be? It turns out,

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while Nia may have grown bored with Alfie, he is still enthralled with her, and has set out to find the perfect birthday gift. Unfortunately, as a turtle, he doesn't move very fast...

The third picture-book that author/artist Thyra Heder has produced, following upon Fraidyzoo and The Bear Report, Alfie: (The Turtle That Disappeared) offers a lovely depiction of a human-turtle relationship, as viewed by the two different participants. Although the text itself does not draw attention to this fact, the idea that turtles live their (very long) lives at a different pace than humans is ably captured in the illustrations, which conclude with Nia's birthday party (albeit not the one the reader may expect). As always with Heder's books, I found the narrative her engaging, and the artwork absolutely gorgeous.

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