PICTA THE PAINTED TURTLE

In the main, Miss Voight survives the restrictions imposed by a vocabulary controlled and based on a first grade word list (which introduces another 34 key words). She describes here the cycle of life for painted turtles by following Picta from the egg to the day when her own unrecognized brood joins her in the sun. The whole balance of nature in and on Picta's pond as well as its relentlessness and its seasonal pattern comes through. The delimited vocabulary undoubtedly prevents a closer description of how a turtle breathes underwater which may well be a reader question. It is hard to establish Picta's relative size from the various illustrations and the flat solidness of the colors (blue, green and black) does not enhance the text. However, the book, considering its subject and tone, lends itself to use with older, slower readers as well as beginners. A See and Read Beginning to Read book.