Turtle Summer: A Journal for my Daughter

This is a companion book to Mary Alice Monroe’s novel, Swimming Lessons, the sequel to The Beach House. In the novel, the readers witness a young mother, Toy, writing a journal for her daughter, Little Lovie. This is the journal Toy is writing. Using original photographs, this scrapbook journal explains the nesting cycle of sea turtles and the natural life along the Southeastern coast, including local shore birds, shells, and the sea turtle hospital. Adults and children will enjoy the images, information and the journal with or without the novel. The “For Creative Minds” educational section includes turtle nesting facts, a shell identification activity, and a make-your-own nature journal.

Mary Alice Monroe (A Butterfly Called Hope) is the New York Times bestselling author of The Beach House, Swimming Lessons, Beach House Memories, Skyward, Sweetgrass, Time is a River, Last Light Over Carolina, and The Butterfly’s Daughter among other novels. Her first children's book, Turtle Summer: A Journal for my Daughter (ASPCA Henry Bergh award-winner) was released to great acclaim in 2007 as a picture book companion to her adult novel, Swimming Lessons. A Butterfly Called Hope is her second children's photographic book and is the result of her monarch-raising research for The Butterfly's Daughter. Mary Alice is currently working on a trilogy of novels about dolphins. Look for a third children's book to accompany that series.

Barbara J. Bergwerf photo journals her nature-related volunteer involvement at the South Carolina Aquarium's Sea Turtle Hospital, the Island Turtle Team on Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island, and the South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey. She's collaborated with best-selling novelist Mary Alice Monroe to share butterfly and loggerhead sea turtle photos with children through A Butterfly Called Hope and the award-winning Turtle Summer: A Journal for my Daughter. Her incredible photos also grace the award-winning children's book, Carolina's Story: Sea Turtles Get Sick Too! Barbara thought that she was retiring when she and her husband moved to the South Carolina Lowcountry. Somehow retirement doesn't seem to be in her vocabulary!