Sally and the Limpet

by Simon James

Sally learns a valuable lesson about nature and the environment when she pries a limpet off a rock at the ocean's edge and then is unable to pry it from her finger

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Fiction, Nature

28 pages, Library Binding

First published April 1, 1991

About the author

Simon James is the award-winning author-illustrator of many children’s books, including such favorites as DEAR GREENPEACE, LEON AND BOB, and the Baby Brains series. His stories often concern a child’s relationship with the natural world. Simon James lives in England.

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colorado is pretty far from any ocean, so our kids have very little first-hand experience with tide pools, tides, waves, beaches, shells ... and all the life forms that inhabit salty water. A lot of books overwhelm the young reader with too much info. I particularly like that this story focuses on a limpet. I suspect that every child will remember something about limpets after reading this story, and they'll probably look for limpets when visiting the ocean.

I also like the important idea that it's best to leave living things where you see them. (The gentle attempts at removal were good; I cringed at some of the harsher methods.) Being relatively uninformed about limpets ... would they really stick to a person's skin?

The book begins,
Not long ago, on a Sunday, Sally was down on the beach exploring, when she found a brightly colored, bigger-than-usual limpet shell.

[Justine Carnegie · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the children on nursery placement often chose this book to read. Personally I did not enjoy it and often the children didn’t seem to follow the story. I think they would need to understand what a limpet was and maybe have some experience of the seaside to really gain learning from the book. Although the children I read it with did gain personal and social skills through listening to the story with a familiar adult in a small group.

[Immy · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a trip to the beach Sally gets a limpet stuck on her finger. No matter what anyone does it seems impossible to remove the limpet from Sally's finger.

All it takes for the limpet to be removed is to return it home. Sally shows us how kindness and thinking of others can often gain better results than 'brute force'.
The illustrations accompanying this unique little story add to the sweetness of sally and her limpet and demonstrate how small packages can often be the strongest.

[Tamsin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vibrantly illustrated book about a girl named Sally, who gets a limpet stuck to her finger on her family holiday at the seaside.

A great introduction to the wildlife found at a beach - a brilliant resource for science, with an ecological starting point for further study.

[Duncan Beckley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute story. Nice message. Delightful illustrations. Good vocabulary if slightly simplistic. Not much variety in punctuation.

[boeken lezen (en onthouden) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hoe vaker we het lezen, hoe beter het in elkaar zit.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

We read this book after every beach holiday. Just a fun story about a girl who gets a limpet stuck on her finger.

[Caitlin Hoole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book, showed the class limpet shells from the beach so they could imagine how it might of felt.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mermaid Story Time, 2024.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Sally and the Limpet Simon James has created a gentle story with ecological undercurrents supported by fantastic illustrations. This book is a fantastic read-aloud story and would be great for any Key Stage 1 class. It is about one child, a girl called Sally who goes on holiday with her family and feels sad for a limpet she finds when she goes rockpooling. When Sally pulls the limpet off the rock it gets stuck on her finger and will not come off! Everything she tries fails (which includes going to the hospital and different people trying to pull it off), and eventually she takes it back to the rockpools where it belongs and the limpet makes its own way off her finger.

On the face of it, this is a lovely story about an idyllic seaside family holiday gone wrong. Underneath all of that however, there is an ecological message which children will take away with them. The tagline from the front of the book “A limpet’s home is by the sea” really brings home the message that James is trying to get across. That message is about how you should leave things alone in their natural habitat and try not to disturb them, which is important for any child to learn. Sally and the Limpet would be of great value to any Key Stage 1 classroom as it covers topics such as holidays, the seaside, rockpools and marine creatures and would be great to use in literacy, topic work, or art.

This book is fast paced, which allows children to get engaged with the story right from the very start and it captivates the reader in Sally’s attempt to get the limpet off her finger so she can resume her normal life. The ecological undertone to the story is very much in line with Simon James’s other works, but it does not overpower the whole feel of the book or the storyline of a family holiday to the seaside.

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sally and the Limpet takes place on a sunny, summer, Sunday at the beach. Sally is playing down at the beach when she finds a limpet shell. The limpet gets stuck onto Sally's finger. No matter how hard the dad, mom, brother, doctor and friends try they can not get the limpet off of Sally's finger. The nature teacher tells Sally that the limpet lives for twenty years on the same rock. Sally decides to release the limpet back into the ocean and onto the same rock she found it on. This book is about respecting nature and the environment. As a teacher I would use this book with the resource model, Text Participant, to help children understand and make connections with what they're read.(Environment, nature, respect etc..)

[Ben Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely book I read to year 2 children. One Sunday by the sea, Sally finds shellfish that is bigger than usual, and she decides to take it home with her. It makes a squelching noise and holds tight to its rock, but she keeps on pulling - until suddenly the limpet shell is stuck to her finger and won’t let go. Her dad tries to free her finger with his tools and her brother tries to feed it lettuce. The doctor pours on chemicals and potions. Sally’s teacher says a limpet lives for twenty years and spends its lifetime on one rock, to which Sally feels really upset. This is a fantastically illustrated book.

[Constance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another funny, sweet book by Simon James.