It's the Book Club for Kids.
It's the Book Club for Kids.
It's the Book Club for Kids.
It's the Book Club for Kids podcast.
Hi, I'm Kitty Felde.
It's summer vacation, the perfect time to visit your favorite island, whether it's off the coast of Maine or California or Florida.
We visit Key West Florida, the book Turtle in Paradise.
Turtle?
The boy Bean says.
What kind of name is that?
At least I'm not named after something that gives you gas, I say.
That's our celebrity reader, public radio reporter Rachel Miro.
And our trio discussing the book is from a place far away from the Florida Keys, Colorado.
The kids debate whether they'd like to settle down in Key West.
I don't want to get settled.
I want to go explore the world.
And our writer, Jennifer Holm, tells us about falling in love, at least literarily, with an author.
And it was a momentous turning point in my young life because I actually wrote him a fan letter.
This is the Book Club for Kids, the show where kids talk about books.
We'll tell you how you can be on the show a little later on.
But first, let's just jump right in and talk about Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm.
Why don't you guys introduce yourselves?
I'm Laura.
I go to Emerald Elementary in Broomfield, Colorado.
Hi, my name's Julia.
I'm in fifth grade and I go to Coyote Ridge Elementary in Broomfield, Colorado.
Hello, I'm Leah and I am in fifth grade and I am homeschooled and live in Broomfield, Colorado.
The book is like about turtles.
And her mom does housekeeping, and so she's a cleaner.
So she stays at people's houses and cleans for them.
So Turtle has to go to her cousin's house in the Key West.
And so there she finds who her cousins are, and she kind of like fits in.
This book plays when President Roosevelt was president.
And it was about the Great Depression.
When the stock market crashed and a lot of people were, they lost their money.
So how would you describe Turtle?
She is really kind and she's always ready to go on an adventure with a lot of her cousins and friends.
I would say Turtle is a curious girl who would like to see the world.
And she just kind of stands out like with her name and with her cat Smokey, and how she can like react to stuff.
Well, let's meet our main character Turtle, as she lands on the front porch of her aunt's house in Key West.
Our reader is reporter Rachel Miro, who covers Silicon Valley for public radio station KQED in San Francisco.
I think the color of a person's eyes says a lot about them.
Mama has soft blue eyes, and all she sees is kittens and roses.
My eyes are gray as soot, and I see things for what they are.
The mean boy on the porch has green eyes, probably from all the snot in his nose.
I'm turtle, I say.
Turtle?
The boy Bean says.
What kind of name is that?
At least I'm not named after something that gives you gas, I say.
Where's your mother?
Aunt Minnie asks, looking around.
Mr. Edgett answers for me.
In New Jersey.
Where else would she be?
I'm starting to get that bad feeling I always get right before one of Mama's fellas stops coming around and breaks her heart.
Aunt Minnie looks at me in confusion.
I don't understand your mother.
Didn't you get her letter?
I ask, what letter?
Did something happen to her?
Mama wrote you a letter.
I said she got a new job as a housekeeper and mrs budnick doesn't like children, so she sent you to me.
I didn't have anywhere else to go.
She looks shocked.
For how long?
Until we can get a place of our own, i guess i say, or until she gets a new job where i can live with her.
But Aunt Minnie isn't listening to me.
This is just like Sadie Bell.
She never thinks, as if I don't already have enough with three kids and a husband who's never home.
She looks at Smokey.
And you brought a cat?
Smokey's a good mouser, they say.
She's good at being ugly is what she is, Bean says.
From inside, a young voice calls.
Aunt Minnie closes her eyes and rubs her forehead.
The voice cries again.
She turns on her heel, walking through the door without a backward glance.
Beans, help your cousin with her bag, she calls over her shoulder.
Then it's just Beans and me and the animals.
Here, Beans says with a mean smile, picking up my suitcase.
Let me help you with your bag, tortoise.
He flips it over in one smooth movement, dumping my belongings onto the wooden porch in a heap and sending my paper dolls flying everywhere.
Beans walks into the house, the dog running after him, and slams the door so hard it nearly falls off its hinges.
So talk a little bit about Key West.
You guys never have been there, right?
No, we have not been to Key West.
So what's it like from what the book tells you?
Porn?
Sort of like little town, sort of.
They live in alleys where townhouses are, and then there's different types of keys.
And when we say key, are we talking about the thing you stick in a door?
No, we're not talking about the thing you stick in the door.
We're talking about the different areas of the place where they live.
Key West is more of a tropical area.
Nobody wore shoes there because probably it was so hot.
I'd probably bring pants and stuff, because I'm so used to Colorado instead of shorts and short-sleeved shirts.
I'm also used to not having to wear shorts, except for only a few months, because here in Colorado our weather is changing constantly.
I've lived in Kansas City, so that's really humid there.
So I can kind of imagine, but I'm sure it's a lot hotter in Key West.
So I can't fully understand, but I do understand the humidity part of it.
Well, does it sound like a place you'd like to go visit?
Yeah, I would just like to see what it's like there and just spend some time there and do a little research on it too.
I would like to go to Key West but not like live there because I don't want to get settled.
I want to like go explore the world like Sadie Bell.
I think it would be cool to go visit there, because I've actually personally never been to the coast, so I've never actually been to the ocean.
So I really would like to go to see the ocean and it would be Really fun to see all the tropical palm trees and everything like that.
Everybody seems to have a nickname in Key West.
Like what?
Slowpoke, Buddy, Beans, Porkchop, Kermit, Slowpoke, Too Bad.
My favorite nickname out of all of them is probably Beans.
I think it's cool.
It's a lot different than a lot of the names that we have now.
Do you guys have nicknames?
No, I don't have any nicknames.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You have no nickname, Juliette?
I don't have any nickname.
Ever?
No.
Would you like one?
No, not really.
I just kind of like being unique.
My nickname is Leah Badia, which was given by some good friends of ours.
Well, now, are nicknames generally playful or hurtful or both?
It depends on how you think of it.
Like if your friend gives you it and they ask if that's okay with you, then that would be like funny.
Now if like a bully called you a really mean nickname, that would just be hurtful.
It is sometimes like just for fun, but then sometimes not for fun.
Well, then what's the difference?
Is it whether you choose it or whether you... as you said, give permission to use it?
I mean, where is that line drawn?
If someone that doesn't like you or is really mean to people gives it to you, that's not really a playful nickname, I'd say.
But if your friend or your family member gives it to you, that's more of a playful nickname.
We asked writer Jennifer Holm about all the nicknames in Turtle in Paradise.
So there's this whole tradition in Key West of nicknaming, a really pretty solid tradition in the early part of the century.
A historian actually went through like a local historian went through and published two books of nicknames and people were often given nicknames and some of them were salty and some of them were funny, like from pork chop to.
Kitty or something like that.
And I wanted to sort of extend the nicknaming style narrative a bit.
And turtles in Key West are a thing that was a hub for turtle farming.
Basically, they would catch big sea turtles and then process them in Key West.
So growing up, the cheapest meat in Key West was turtle meat, which apparently tastes like chicken.
Everybody told me if I had a particular nickname, what would it be?
Well, my family, my dad called me Princess Peaky Poe.
So that was the family nickname.
I don't know if that was a good nickname or not.
And the other nickname I would have would probably be Fern F-E-R-N, because that became a family joke when I was little.
I couldn't write my name properly.
I thought my name was Jenny Fern, because everybody called me Jenny, J-E-N and I.
I thought my name was Jennifer Holm, F-E-R.
I'm Jennifer Louise Holm, actually.
So my brothers thought this was very amusing and for many years called me Fern when they were teasing me.
So which character did you like the best?
Probably Porkchop.
He always made me laugh because of what he said.
It was just really funny.
I like Turtle.
Not just because she's the main character, but because she's really funny and she's really outgoing and also she likes to run around and go on adventures and do stuff that not a lot of people like to do.
Do you go on adventures like Turtle?
I wouldn't say that, but I do like to go to different places, like go see different types of areas.
I really like The character Slowpoke because I think it's like sometimes good to be late.
Well, you don't have to be like right on time, I guess.
You can like think about it and get in, I guess.
Yeah, slower pace down in Key West.
So what kind of a mom is Sadie Bell?
So she'll get together with someone, and then they'll break up.
And then she'll get together with someone, and then they'll break up.
I don't know.
I don't really think I'd want a person exactly like her for a mom, because she'll bring someone that you really think is going to be your father and you'll be super excited about it.
And then they break up and you'll never see him again.
Well, who's more adult do you think?
Do you think it's Turtle or her mother?
I think Turtle actually would be like a parent.
Well, not a parent, but she really like stays strong and keeps, like her small little portion of the family together when the times are rough.
She would be a very good parent if I had her.
She would be really like my favorite mom.
She is always keeping it together.
She doesn't really break out or like get upset.
She just kind of holds it inside.
She's more of the nourishing parent than her mom, because her mom is really.
If it's just a little thing, she'll break down and turtle will have to try to keep herself together so she can help her mom instead of her mom trying to keep herself together and help turtle.
So let's talk about this diaper gang.
What the heck is the diaper gang?
Um, the diaper gang uh, watches bad babies like that don't behave well, And so they'll bring a bunch of blankets along and then they'll wrap the babies up in the blankets and then they'll lay them in the sun.
And then they'll fall asleep and they just kind of chill out and they get paid with candy.
And they also have a secret formula, which I'm not going to spoil.
They really like doing what they do, I guess, because it's really fun for them.
And they really don't have to do much because after they put the baby in the sun and it falls asleep, they just go play around and they'll go check on it every once in a while.
But normally Turtle and Smokey, her cat, would stay and watch the baby because she was really worried.
I think they have a really good creative imagination of it.
And plus, you really got to know.
The secret formula, you got to be in the diaper game to know.
Do you think your parents would allow a child, a baby, to be taken away by the diaper gang to be babysat?
I do not think so because, A, they're kids, and, B, they do seem to get into a lot of trouble.
So I highly doubt my parents would let those kids just take me or my sister or anything like that.
I would not really trust them.
Well, I would want my mom and dad to get to know them before you trust them, just like any parent would want to do.
Well, what makes a good babysitter?
If you're always right by the baby or the kid that you're watching and that you're always very careful with it and you don't just wrap it and leave it in the sun, because that can make a sunburn.
Also like if they play with the kids and like if it's like a four or five year old, like let it do some coloring with you.
I remember my babysitter when I was little she always did coloring with me.
I think if you give, like the child, the creative start, So it's just like with flowers you let them grow by themselves.
You just nurture them and take care of them.
So did you guys like the book?
I liked the book because it told a lot about people and what the Key West was like and what Aunt Minnie was like.
Having three children and a husband who's rarely home and only comes home on weekends, sometimes every other weekend that sounds hard.
Yeah, it sounds very hard.
I really like the book because it gives you a closer look at what the great depression was actually like for kids and not just the parents.
I would not want to live in that time because it seems really hard and the kids would not have a lot of food and They wouldn't have a big enough house, because I know Beans is the only one who had his own room and the other two had to share.
Yes, I like the book very much.
We always like to end by asking everybody, what's your favorite book?
I really like Wonder because it tells what it's like to be kind of the odd man out and different than most people.
And it's a recent book club selection.
So if you go to our website bookclubforkidsorg, you'll find a link there so you can listen to that episode as well.
I don't really have a favorite book, but I have a favorite series.
It's by W Bruce Carman and he writes the Dog's Purpose book and I've read all the books and seen the movie.
It's really good.
It just kind of tells the dog's point of view about And like as it goes through each life, it discovers its purpose.
I like it because it's just about dogs.
I really like Harry Potter because it's like magical and you feel like you're really there, not just like other books maybe.
Okay, Rachel Myra, what is your favorite book?
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.
Why that one?
For one thing, it's poetry and he's got an amazing ability to rhyme and a great sense of humor and you can't help but remember lines like, Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout would not take the garbage out.
She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans, candy the yams and spice the hams.
And though her daddy would scream and shout, she simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceilings coffee grounds, potato peelings, brown bananas, rotten peas, chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor.
It cracked the window and blocked the door.
You know, I'm afraid we're out of time, Rachel.
What about you, Jennifer Holm?
Oh, my favorite book of all time is The Black Cauldron by the master Lloyd Alexander.
It was the book that really kind of blew my mind as a kid and turned me into a crazy, crazy reader.
And it was a momentous turning point in my in my young life, because I actually wrote him a fan letter.
I sent the fan letter to the publishing house in New York City, or my mother did, obviously.
And I came home from school weeks later and my mom said there's a man on the phone for you that wants to talk to you.
And she thought this was a little disapproving.
And I pick up the phone, and the voice on the other end says, hi, this is Lloyd Alexander.
And he called me.
And I thought he was calling me because I'd written such an epic fan letter.
But it turned out that when I wrote my letter—
I hadn't given the return address.
I'd given my phone number.
And so he just called me up on the phone to get my address.
But many, many years later, after I'd published my first two books, a bookseller sent my books to him.
And he sent me a little letter, which is on my desk, that says he remembered calling the little girl in Audubon.
And he was very happy to hear that I turned out okay.
We have a list of everybody's favorite book at our website, bookclubforkids.org.
And if you'd like to be on the show, just have your teacher, parent or librarian.
Send us an email to kitty at bookclubforkidsorg and we will send out all the information.
It's easy, and it's a lot of fun.
That's kitty, K-I-T-T-Y, at bookclubforkids.org.
Book Club for Kids is funded in part by the D.C.
Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and by listeners like you.
Thanks this week to Jonathan Jensen, who composed and performed our music, and Emma Steinkellner, who designed our logo.
And thanks to our readers at the Mamie Dowd Eisenhower Public Library in Broomfield Colorado Laura, Juliet and Leah, and to our favorite Colorado librarian, Susan Dunn.
We have a free newsletter for teachers, parents and librarians full of free tips about how to turn kids into lifelong readers.
You can sign up at the website, bookclubforkids.org.
And you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even Pinterest.
And, of course, we urge you to use the hashtag, Tripod.
I'm Kitty Felde.
Thanks again for listening.
Thanks for watching!
