Tortoise Reform

by Piers Anthony

Rowan is a very lonely ten-year-old girl. Her parents sent her to stay with her aunt and uncle, and she feels rejected by everyone around her. She tends to get into accidental mischief, which causes Rowan's relatives to keep threatening to send her to boarding school. In another dimension, Gopher is a burrowing tortoise. In Gopher's world animals are intelligent and communicate telepathically, while all humans are "dull" and only used as beasts of burden. Gopher and four other friends live together as burrow mates. For their burrow to be officially recognized by the Elders they must find one more for their group. The problem is they are all too young and no one wants to join them to help protect the burrow. One day, while digging a new tunnel, Gopher falls through a sinkhole and discovers a whole new realm. There Gopher meets Rowan and discovers to his horror that in this new world humans can talk, and while they don't know how to use telepathy yet, the fact that they communicate shocks Gopher. What a catastrophe it would be if humans suddenly became intelligent! Becoming friends, Rowan learns to communicate telepathically and vows to help Gopher find his way back home. But her task just got a lot more complicated when Gopher is captured by a tortoise hunter and Rowan discovers that construction will soon begin over the sinkhole leading to Gopher's world. The race is on to rescue Gopher, stop the construction, and get him back home again before someone discovers Gopher's secret.

Genres: Fantasy, Ebooks, Fiction, Young Adult

171 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2007

About the author

Though he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.

Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.

Reviews

[Thaydra · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would have been much better had I gone into it expecting a young juvenile book. Instead, this was shelved as an adult fantasy fiction.

The writing was rather simplistic, and the action was negligible. I did not like the child in the story.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably like a 4.3 for me. It's just charming and sweet.

It filled me with happy feelings, like all is right in the world even when things are rough, since there's some really nice creatures out there.

[Sean Randall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vintage piers? Maybe. Odd, one of his whims and that hsows. It's also bloody hard to explain intraspecies telepathy to a seven-year-old.

[Cynthia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Engaging story, but it lacked something. The ending was unsatisfactory - too many possible loose ends - and the heroine of the story had too much convenient knowledge. The plot concept is an intriguing one, however, even if it is a spin-off of possibilities from the Mode Series.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seemed like a book written by a young author. Maybe this is meant for a younger audience than I was expecting.

That being said, I like the idea upon which this story was created. What if the animals on Piers' farm truly had their own realm.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good read. Very good for kids 10+, but also very good for adults.