Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz (Children's Literature)
Tortoises live a long time, so many adventures are possible. But even as a hatchling our tortoise hero embraces a quiet life. Shipped to the soup pots of New York, he luckily lands instead in the lap of Pelonius Pimplewhite, a horticulturalist, who names him Sunny Boy. Outliving his owner, Sunny boy lives first with stamp-collecting Cornelius, and then with Latin Scholar, Augustus. Both offer the quiet life he enjoys. But then he goes to live with daredevil Biff, and his life changes. Biff barely survives being shot from a canon, walking on an airplane wing, and racing through fire. When he plans to go over Niagara Falls, Sunny Boy flees to Knott’s Niagara Museum. There he encounters a young girl named Euphemia, who happens to love orchids, stamps, and Latin. After Biff drags him over the Falls, Sunny Boy is happy to be left with Euphemia most of the time, enjoying the quiet life of his past, while Biff faces further adventures. Wilsdorf’s colored drawings tell the visual tale with so many comic details that the flow of events moves tortoise slowly. For example, the double-page peek into the museum displays an amazing variety of intriguing exhibits to tease the eye. There is a vitality to the pictures that matches Biff’s exploring compulsions. A final page gives the facts about those who really have gone over the Falls, including the Sunny Boy who inspired the story. The information is enhanced by the end-papers, the front having a portrait gallery of survivors of the Falls, and the back showing the contraptions they rode. 2005, Melanie Kroupa Books/Farrar Straus and Giroux, $16.00. Ages 5 to 8.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2005 (Vol. 73, No. 14))
A century in the keeping of one sedate owner after another leaves a small tortoise utterly unprepared for life with a reckless daredevil. In a captivating memoir, Sunny Boy fondly recalls quiet years with a gardener, a stamp collector and a Latin scholar-followed by a decidedly upsetting stint with Biff, an enthusiast who embarks on a string of failed stunts, then resolves to take a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel with, unfortunately, his trusty tortoise by his side. Telling the tale in an evocatively deliberate voice-"My world tipped. Now, instead of basking in the bright sunlight, I bounced and jostled about in Biff's dank sidecar"-that brings out his character with the same clarity that the small, anxious-looking figure, cast into various perilous situations in Wilsdorf's exuberantly drawn cartoons, does, Sunny Boy makes an engaging narrator indeed-particularly after the Niagara triumph actually leaves him with a taste for adventure, so long as it's only occasional. Loosely based on a true episode that didn't have such a happy ending (only the tortoise survived), this will delight both active and armchair daredevils. (afterword) 2005, Melanie Kroupa/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 40p, $16.00. Category: Picture book. Ages 7 to 9. Starred Review. © 2005 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.