JUST KATE

A turtle attempts to make friends with an octopus in Alford and Milazzo’s picture book.

Kate loves swimming more than anything, which is fortunate, because she’s a sea turtle. She investigates rocks and coral reefs, watching different types of fish. Green turtles are mostly solitary, but Kate’s lonely. She sees a sleeping octopus and hollers an offer of friendship, terrifying the creature. Cecil fears that Kate will eat him, but she reassures him that’s not the case and introduces herself. The two new acquaintances try to figure out what they can do together, but they swim at different speeds, so they can’t race or easily play hide and seek. Grumpy Cecil declares that they can’t be friends and swims away, so Kate heads to the surface. However, before she can get there, she hears Cecil cry for help. Milazzo’s illustrations are fairly realistic colored pencil drawings that showcase the main characters and their environment. The narrative contains a very light environmentalist message—Kate looks at the sea floor and sees that it’s covered in what the reader knows is trash, although the protagonist doesn’t—and there’s backmatter about how young readers may help ocean animals, but this feels like a relatively minor addition, as the friendship aspect is a far more important story element.

A well-illustrated tale that focuses mainly on the process of social connection.