Here’s a roundup of imaginary books and movies about turtles and turtle people I think would be a hoot!
Literature
- Zorba, the Greek Tortoise
- Don Juan—A Male Box Turtle’s Unflagging Search For Sexual Fulfillment with a Steel Helmet, a Man’s Boot, and a Chair Leg
- Great Expectations, or, Will My Turtle Eggs Hatch?
- A Tail of Two Bigheaded Turtles
- The Box Turtles of Madison County
- Les Miserables. The heartrending story of a turtle wife who robs a Food Emporium to feed her family when she can’t control her spouse’s unbridled spending on his turtles’ food.
- Metamorphosis. The protagonist awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a loggerhead sea turtle. Forced by his despotic father to hide in his room, he slowly dies, from his family’s neglect and a lack of sea water.
Popular Lit
- The First Turtle Wives Club
Self-Help
- Wherever You Go, There’s a Turtle!
- How to Connect With Your Inner Sea Turtle
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Tortoise Breeders
- Turtle Soup for the Turtle Wife’s Soul
- The One Minute Turtle Manager: A Guide to Changing Turtle Water in Under a Minute
Children’s Books
- A Child’s Garden of Tortoises
- Charlotte’s Box Turtle
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Turtle Factor
Poetry
- The Turtle Not Taken. In which the author must choose between a painted turtle and a Russian tortoise and how that decision alters his life.
- Ode to a Turtle. A meditation upon art and life inspired by the scratchings of a box turtle, who has dug a nest in the poet’s garden.
Science Fiction
- Turtle Wars – In a galaxy far, far, away (okay, California), two male desert tortoises clash to win the right to mate with a female.
Movies
- How Green Was My Turtle
- The Big Sleep – A box turtle’s winter hibernation
- Indiana Jones and the Snapping Turtle of Doom
- The Old Man and the Sea Turtle
- Jaws 4 – An alligator snapper terrorizes tourists at a lakeside resort
