The Girl and the Sea Cucumber

Maya loves low tide, when the rocky shore opens like a secret door and the tide pool becomes a tiny ocean world. One morning, while drawing the crabs, starfish and darting fish she finds there, she notices a bumpy reddish-brown lump half-hidden under a rock. It has no eyes, no fins and no legs, and it looks like a wrinkled pickle. When a tall ranger named Jonah kneels beside her and tells her it is a sea cucumber, Maya is unimpressed. What could a slow, quiet lump possibly do?

Through Jonah's magnifying glass, Maya discovers rows of tiny tube feet and feathery tentacles, and she learns that sea cucumbers eat dead matter and old food from the ocean floor, cleaning the sand and water for everyone else. She names her new acquaintance Pippin and begins a field guide to the animals most people walk right past: barnacles, sea snails, limpets and sea urchins. With her best friend Ruby, she returns to the tide pool to draw and record fun facts, and together they share their guide with other children at a table by the shore. This gentle story by Ebru Mina TOMURCUK can be read on Onlinemasal Com.Tr.