Limu the Blue Turtle and His Hawaiian Garden

by Kimo Armitage

Limu the blue turtle, lovable main character of the best-selling children's book by the same name, is back in another heart-warming adventure. Jonah, a whale Limu befriended in the first book, returns... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0931548640
• ISBN13: 9780931548642
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Island Heritage Publishing
• Length: 28 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Limu and Coral save the day! Remove invasive species!

Limu the Blue Turtle and His Hawaiian Garden, by Kimo Armitage and illustrated by Scott Kaneshiro, is a book for children focusing on friendship and cooperation. It is also a book about the danger of moving plants and animals from one place to another - invasive species. Limu (a blue "green turtle") is given a spring of seaweed by his friend, Jonah the humpback whale. Limu loves maintaining his underwater ecosystem, and plants this seaweed (sorta giant kelp-like). The seaweed grows and grows. "It grew so big that it blocked the sun from the other seaweed trees and they started to wilt. When there was no more seaweed to eat, the small fishes left. When there were no more small fishes, the big fishes had no food, so they left" (p. 8). This is the case in some areas of Maui and Oahu, with invasive algae drastically changing the nearshore reef environment. So Limu (ironically, meaning "seaweed" in Hawaiian), pulls up this huge seaweed tree to return it to its home in the Faraway Forest. It is too big, however, and he is tired and discouraged. But then, Coral (a pink "green turtle") shows up to help, along with a hundred jellyfish. They get this seaweed tree back to the forest where it belongs. Limu returns to his garden and makes repairs. "'I will help you,' said Coral. 'Everyone needs healthy plants to live.' They worked hard to fix his underwater garden. Some of the seaweeds and fishes never came back, but some did! Their return made all the difference in the world" (p. 24-25). Kaneshiro adds parrotfish, trevally, eagle rays, raccoon butterflyfish, yellow tang, sergeant fish, and more to his illustrations. Beautiful! I do wish Armitage would have mentioned "invasive species" one time, because this was a critical point. Invasive species are moved around this planet, intentionally and unintentionally. And they can result in devastated ecosystems: brown tree snakes, cane toads, zebra mussels, West Nile virus, tamarisk (salt-cedar), and more. Kids need to understand these things! And this book is one way to bring it to their attention.

Charming book

My two-year old received this as a gift. He immensely enjoys the beautiful illustrations. The underlying theme is the preservation of life species within ecosystems. But it has been beautifully conveyed to young readers. I highly recommend it.