Jennifer Holm: Hi! This is Jennie Holm, and I'm the author of 'Turtle in Paradise'. I'm going to tell you a little bit about how I came to write this book, and then I'm going to read an excerpt for you.

'Turtle in Paradise' started out because of a story my mom liked to tell me about her childhood. She grew up in New Jersey, but her grandmother was from Key West, Florida. So, during the summers, my mom would go to Key West to visit the relatives there, and she didn't really like going to Key West. It was a long drive by car from New Jersey, and Key West in July is hot and sticky, and people didn't have air conditioning back then like they do now. But strangest of all had to do with her shoes. Her mom always told her to take out her shoes before she put them on when she was in Key West. My mom didn't know why her mother wanted her to do this, but she did it anyway.

Then one day, she shook out her shoes, and out popped a scorpion. So, in 'Turtle in Paradise', a girl named Turtle and her cat, Smokey, are sent to live in Key West, Florida in 1935. She finds it hot and strange and exotic. She discovers she has a bunch of bare-foot boy cousins who run a babysitting service called "The Diaper Gang". She meets sponge fisherman and rum runners, and there are rumors of pirate treasure, and this is how the book starts.

Everyone thinks children are sweet as Necco wafers, but I've lived long enough to know the truth. Kids are rotten! The only difference between grown-ups and kids is that grown-ups go to jail for murder. Kids get away with it. I stare out the window as Mr. Edgit's Ford Model-A rumbles along the road, kicking up clouds of dust. It's so hot that the backs of my legs feel like melted gum, only stickier. We'd been driving for days now. It feels like eternity. In front of us is a rusty pickup truck with a gang of dirty looking kids in the back, sandwiched between furniture. An iron bed, a rocking chair, battered tots, all tied up with little bits of fraying rope, like a spiderweb.

A girl my age is holding a baby that's got a pair of lady's bloomers tied on its head to keep the sun out of its eyes. The boy sitting next to her had a gap between his two front teeth, not that this stopped him from blowing spit balls at us through a straw. We'd been stuck behind this truck for the last few miles, and our windshield is covered with watered bits of wet newspaper. A spit ball smacks the window, and Mr. Edgit hammers the horn with the palm of his hand, the no-good boy just laughed and sticks out his tongue.