Yoshi and the Ocean: A Sea Turtle’s Incredible Journey Home, Lindsay Moore’s account of the incredible intercontinental journey of a loggerhead sea turtle, opens with two spreads that precede its title page. Readers meet Yoshi inside an egg, “before she had a name.” Folded within a shell, the little turtle waits until “the voice of the waves” calls her to hatch and enter the world.
As Moore’s story begins, Yoshi is “small and broken,” wounded in the water and rescued by fishermen who name her Yoshitaro. She finds a new home and heals at an aquarium in Cape Town, South Africa, much to the delight of the aquarium’s visitors. But after some time, Yoshi knows that she needs to return to the ocean: “She is from away from here, and that is where she needs to go.”
The scientists who brought Yoshi back to health attach a tracking device to her shell and release her into the ocean. The rest of Moore’s book tracks Yoshi’s extraordinary three-year journey up the eastern coast of Africa, as far north as Angola, then back around the southern tip of the continent and all the way across the Indian Ocean to waters off the northwestern coast of Australia—a distance of 25,000 miles!
Moore gives this remarkable true story an appealing structure. The refrain “This is Yoshi . . .” grounds readers in each new location along the turtle’s journey. As Yoshi sets out on her trip, the story’s brisk pace keeps readers turning pages. Each time Yoshi surfaces above the waves, allowing her tracker to send a signal to a satellite, we read in a looping cursive font: “Hello from Yoshi. I am here.” The narrative pacing slows as the turtle nears Australia, where she transmits one final, emotionally satisfying message, displayed in large letters that span the entire spread: “Hello from Yoshi. I am home.”
Moore illustrates this tale in sweeping full-bleed views of the worlds above and below the waves. Readers discover these worlds along with Yoshi as she takes in all the wonders of ocean life. Moore’s language is precise but also lyrical as she notes the “shape of a wave, the shift of the wind, the push of a current.” The book’s detailed back matter, which includes a photograph of Yoshi, will inspire readers to revisit the turtle’s story, equipped with the context to fully appreciate her astonishing voyage.