Tuatara, A Living Treasure product reviews

Before this book was so much as opened, both children had to feel the cover! The tuatara picture is embossed to give the effect of a reptilian body standing proud of the rest of the cover. This prompted a discussion on what a real tuatara might feel like, and whether it might be possible to touch a live one. When the family visited Hanmer Springs recently, they had admired the tuatara shaped slide there. Mr Four spotted the resemblance and was pleased that he remembered it enough to make the connection.

Eventually, the book was opened so they could read the story. They loved the account of the tuatara's life cycle, admiring the clear illustrations which helped them to understand it. Mr Four found that reading the book in one go was slightly beyond his attention span, but Miss Five was intrigued throughout and had plenty of questions. The highlighted "fact boxes" answered most of her questions; they were great for an older child but could be omitted when reading to a younger one without having an impact on the story proper.

The concept of a "living treasure" appealed to Miss Five. Mr Four was fascinated to discover that tuatara are related to dinosaurs and wanted to know more about them! The family lives near Willowbank Wildlife Reserve where tuatara, along with other native species like kiwi and kea, can be seen, so reading a book about tuatara has prompted the family to plan a trip there in the near future to see them. The power of books cannot be underestimated; without this catalyst, it might not have occurred to the children to make a request like this.

At the back of the book are Tuatara Background and Tuatara Facts pages which the adults all found informative. There were certainly some things that none of us knew before like their life expectancy (they can outlive humans) and the variation in colour - I had always thought of tuatara being uniformly grey, but they can range from grey through to green, brown, orange, and even red. In addition to the fact sheets, there is also a selected bibliography on the endpage for those who want to explore the topic even more. This would be especially useful for older family members doing school projects, or even for adults intrigued by the subject and wanting to explore it further. Although the main text is accessible to very young children, it is not dumbed down. Words like "ectotherms" and "rhynchocephalians" are included in the "fact boxes" and are explained in context for older readers.

2 of my children go to a small rural school and have recently been studying about Papatūānuku (The Earth Mother) and Ranginui (The Sky Father). Further on from this they have been looking into the creatures that inhabit the land we live on, and the water around us, when I saw this book on the KIWIreviews site available to request, I thought it would be an ideal one for the school to read and keep in their library.

When the book arrived, I was amazed at the quality of the illustration on the cover, the Tuatara looks lifelike and the attention to detail is flawless, from the look of the skin to the gleam in the eye, I was hopeful the rest of the book was this stunning too, and as I turned to the first page to read, I was not disappointed. Throughout the book the illustrations look lifelike, and the children said that they loved the Tuatara, but also the little bugs and the dinosaurs were their favourites, I liked the scenery images and how the illustrator has used the effect of shading and shadowing.

The author has written the story in an easy to follow way, the storyline focuses on a baby Tuatara that has just hatched out of it's egg and made its way up to the surface of the land, it follows its journey and shows various hazards that could harm it, such as the predators around it, further in the book the Tuatara meets a mate and then she lays her own eggs. Throughout the book the author has used descriptive words which help to picture the environment and what is happening, also there are facts interjected in the book so that the reader can learn more about the Tuatara.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it made learning about this creature fun, I learnt several more pieces of information that I previously had never known! The last couple of pages in the book are packed with knowledge about the background of the Tuatara and some more fascinating facts. I look forward to giving this book to the school and know that it will be a valuable resource to them.