The Sea Turtle Story. DVD. 9:52 min. National Film Board of Canada. 2012, 2013 release. ISBN unavail. $99. Gr 1-5–A mother sea turtle struggles ashore, leaving a trail behind her in the sand. She leaves something behind on the beach as well—a nest of buried eggs. Viewers watch as time passes and the eggs mature. Baby sea turtles hatch, but predators await and some are lost. Their journey to the sea is distracted by man-made lights. Those who make it find the ocean has its own hazards, but it is here that the sea turtles grow, mate, and eventually return to shore to lay their own eggs. This beautifully rendered look at the life cycle of the sea turtle is completely wordless. Only lilting and almost magical music accompanies the finely designed stop-action animation that conveys both information and emotion. There’s a little anthropomorphizing here. For example, the mother sea turtle sheds a tear as she leaves her nest for the sea. Viewers will become deeply involved with the fate of the one baby sea turtle the story follows, while enjoying all the other exquisite glimpses of life beneath the waves. The ending is especially poignant as the cycle begins again and the sparkling grains of sand shift to stars in the sky. From beginning to end, this is a production that shows the love and thought involved in its creation.–Teresa Bateman, Brigadoon Elementary, Federal Way, WA