The Girl and the Manatee

Maya lives by the sea and spends her mornings watching the waves, breathing the salty air and listening to the gulls. During a class trip to a coastal conservation center, she meets Dr. Lena, a ranger in an olive green uniform, and comes face to face with Pip, a gentle grey manatee with a long scar on his back left by a fast boat. Learning how slowly manatees swim and how often they must surface to breathe, Maya starts to grasp how careless boating can hurt them, and she decides she wants to do something about it.

Her response is a poster showing a round grey manatee with a whiskered snout, a boat moving slowly inside a green circle, and the words SLOW DOWN! WATCH FOR MANATEES! When she hangs it at the center, Maya finds that her drawing reaches people, from a fisherman who promises to go slow in the bay to a stubborn boat owner who eventually changes his ways. Encouraged by Dr. Lena and her classmates, she takes on teaching visitors about safe boating and keeps visiting Pip with her sketchbook. This tale by Çınar BİBER can be read on Masalcı Baba.