The Editor says: Somewhere along the way, Taiwan's coastline was cut off from its islanders by tetrapod wave-breakers, leaving sea turtles unable to find the shores where they were born — and the people unable to reach the sea. Unable to come ashore, the turtles slowly faded from our collective memory. Fortunately, ShuoYi spent four years studying sea turtle ecology and, with a gifted hand, produced illustration after vivid illustration — strung together like cinematic camera cuts to tell the story of a sea turtle's entire life. If you've ever swum alongside a sea turtle and been captivated by its irresistible charm, then this beautifully accessible picture book is absolutely not to be missed: The Life of a Sea Turtle!
The Life of a Sea Turtle traces the entire journey of a sea turtle through delicate, expressive brushwork.
The Life of a Sea Turtle
Before diving into this ocean picture book — four years in the making — the Editor wants to share a small but clever detail the author has hidden inside. For instance, pay attention to the size relationship between the sea turtle and the sargassum seaweed throughout the book; with a simple visual trick, the author captures how the turtle gradually grows over time. From page to page, consecutive spreads are also linked through objects shared across the scenes, giving the whole experience the feeling of watching a film unfold.
ShuoYi studied industrial and commercial design at university, but found himself uninterested in the precision-driven world of industrial design and gravitated instead toward commercial design. An animal lover since childhood, he discovered sea turtle volunteer work during his student years — and that discovery changed the course of his life. He laughs recalling that he used to be extremely quiet, the kind of person who could sit in a classroom and go completely unnoticed. But becoming a sea turtle volunteer pushed him to actively seek out information, discuss turtle ecology with others, and even travel to Japan's Yakushima Island to volunteer at a sea turtle research station. Perhaps it was exactly that journey that forged ShuoYi's unwavering passion for sea turtles.
Author ShuoYi has an boundless enthusiasm for sea turtles.
The four years it took to complete this picture book coincided exactly with the time ShuoYi spent on Penghu's Hujing Island as a visiting art teacher at a primary school. Why did ShuoYi volunteer to go to a school with fewer than 15 students in total? It all started when, during his university years, he attended a three-day, two-night sea turtle ecology camp on Wangan Island and fell in love with Penghu's unhurried, authentic way of life. The opportunity to encounter sea turtles up close was another major draw — places in Taiwan where sea turtles have been recorded coming ashore include Penghu's Wangan Island, Xiaoliuqiu, and Orchid Island. So he chose to spend four years living in this "island county of a thousand isles," and it was there that he completed this remarkable book. In total, he spent two months on Wangan Island and four years on Hujing Island. He has since officially moved his household registration to Penghu, committing to a future as a dedicated chronicler of the ocean in picture-book form.
ShuoYi once traveled to Japan to work as a sea turtle volunteer and is well acquainted with the Loggerhead Turtle — a species seldom seen by most Taiwanese.
If you think this is simply a picture book, you're underestimating the depth of thought the author has poured into it. This is, in fact, a popular science field guide to sea turtle ecology. Within its pages you can learn about the hatching process of baby sea turtles, the relationships between sea turtles and other animals in nature (predators included), the challenges sea turtles face when they encounter humans, and even the subtle differences between the crawl tracks a turtle leaves on its way up the beach versus on its way back down. Reading the book without the author's narration to accompany it may leave some nuances unexplained, but if you look closely at all the details carefully embedded throughout, you'll find that by the time you finish, you've gained a remarkably thorough understanding of sea turtle ecology.
Using a cinematic approach, the author vividly conveys the full arc of a sea turtle's life.
The Life of a Sea Turtle is actually one entry in a series of works by ShuoYi. His hand-drawn graduate school project, Return to the Island, tells the story of the relationship between sea turtle volunteers and the turtles themselves — how, once the turtles have completed their nesting, it is also time for the volunteers to leave the island. It is a complete record of his experience as a sea turtle volunteer. True to form, that earlier book contained a subtle thread that leads into The Life of a Sea Turtle, and likewise, The Life of a Sea Turtle plants its own seeds for future works. We can only hope to see more ocean and sea turtle stories from ShuoYi in the years ahead. He has submitted this picture book for the 2019 Bologna Children's Book Fair Illustrators Exhibition in Italy — we hope he carries the dream of Taiwan's ocean out to the world.
If you love ShuoYi's illustration style and can't get enough of those endearing sea turtles, reach out to 海龜海龜-ShuoYi for more information!
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