A very young reporter reveals the true story of an elderly villager, Henry Friston, and Ali Pasha, a tortoise who is 68 years old. The elder's tale, based on true events, is a tale of a boy's hunger to see the world. He joined the Royal Navy in 1913, was sent to the Battleship HMS Implacable, and then into war at Gallipoli. Henry said, “I swear the sea was made of blood that day.” p. 40. Ali Pasha was a rescue animal that the young sailor saved from the battle field at Gallipoli and brought home to England. “A Great War survivor of shot and shell,” the Times reported in 1986 when the story was finally told.

2016 Outstanding International Book, United States Board on Books for Young People, USA.

Author lives in Cornwall and London.

UK. Originally published in English by Templar in 2013. Published in the United States by Henry Holt in 2015.