The tale of the Anzac tortoise by Shona Riddell
Ill. by Matt Gauldie. Tortoise Shell Press, 2015. ISBN 9780473318949
(Age: 5-8) Recommended. Matthew and Marama loved playing soldiers in
the backyard of the old big, old house they had just moved into.
Using water pistols and plums as weapons, there were plenty of
bushes and shrubs to hide in or seek shelter. But most of all,
Marama liked to attend to any wounds using the medical set she had
been given for Christmas. It even had fake blood!
One day their games lead them to a hole in the hedge and when they
crawled through it, they found themselves in a neat, manicured
garden that had lawn as soft as carpet. And in the middle of the
lawn, a strange creature was munching on dandelions. But rather than
being the baby dinosaur they thought it was, it turned out to be
Kemal an ancient tortoise with an amazing story - a story the
children find themselves in when they touch the tortoise and find
themselves transported back to the battlefields of World War I.
The centennial commemorations of World War I have inspired many to
delve into their family histories to explore what part their
relatives played in it, and from this many unique and unusual
stories have emerged. The
Tale of the Anzac Tortoise is one such story. It is based on
the
true story of Peter discovered in the trenches of the Western
Front by a wounded soldier who popped him in his pocket for safe
keeping. After being evacuated to the Middle east for treatment,
Pete was given to Nora, a New Zealand nurse stationed there, and
she, in turn, took him back to New Zealand where he lived as a
family pet until his death in 1994.
Told by Nora's great-great niece and illustrated by a former former
NZ Defence Force artist, this is yet another previously unknown but
utterly intriguing story to emerge from World War I that helps to
put a human face to the tragedies of so long ago that are so
important to our nations' histories but hard for little people to
comprehend. The final pages in the book tell a little of the story
behind the story but since the book was written it has become more
widely known and there is much online that the curious can explore.
If for no other reason than it helps to illuminate to Australian
children who put the NZ in ANZAC, this book deserves a place in your
Anzac Day collection.
Barbara Braxton