"Turtles and Tortoises for Dummies" - Liz Palika

Review
The value of this book will depend a bit on what you are looking for in a turtle book. This is an excellent book for beginners. Without a great deal of detail or extraneous information, this book gives a beginner a very good idea of what it takes to properly care for pet turtles and tortoises.

This book is admirable in the sheer variety of turtle and tortoise species that are covered, though. The author's passion for chelonians is readily evident; there is possibly a bit of bias towards tortoises and box turtles, although aquatic turtles do get decent coverage as well.

Trying to cover so many turtles and tortoises in a single book is perhaps too ambitious, though. Given the tremendous amount of information to cover in such a book, it is impossible to cover anything in much detail. Indeed, the author has covered a lot of ground in this book, and gives lots of practical advice, but if you are searching for detailed species-specific care information you should probably seek a more specific reference. The real strength in this book is providing the beginner with a great approach to selecting a turtle or tortoise and getting started with a new turtle.

The organization of the book is a bit counter-intuitive, as species specific care information is given before some of the more generalized information. Also, nutrition isn't covered until chapter 19, which seems a little late in the book for such a basic care topic. However, this is a minor complaint, since between the table of contents and the thorough index it very easy to locate necessary information. Each section contains practical, easy to follow advice. For example, the nutrition section includes a list of vegetables and fruits suitable for feeding, a list of toxic plants, and advice about different live foods and commercial foods.

Overall, for what is does cover, this is an excellent book. As mentioned previously, it is not very detailed beyound the very basics of care and an introduction to species. It touches on a lot of species that the average owner won't be dealing with, so perhaps more time could have been devoted to the more common pet species. The species "Who's Who" is pretty useful for quick comparisons, though, giving expected sizes, basic feeding guidelines, and helpful tips (which species tend to bite, which are escape artists, and other practical tidbits). It would have been nice to include more specifics on appropriate temperatures, humidty, and dietary needs for many of the species (these topics are discussed somewhat generally for the most part, especially temperatures, and there are some important species differences).

I would certainly recommend this book to anyone who was considering a turtle or tortoise, especially if they were trying to decide on the suitability of a turtle or tortoise and selecting a species. While more experienced owners looking for detailed care information might be disappointed, "Turtles and Tortoises for Dummies" has enough basic information to make it quite valuable to a beginner turtle or tortoise keeper.