Over the past 100 years the novel of adolescence has become a familiar staple, depicting sensitive and innocent youth as the victims of a brutal and unfeeling society. Unlike their predecessors, however, today"s youth are plagued by more complex challenges -- not simply having to deal with puberty, the demands of society, as well as their own attempts at individuation through rebellion or withdrawal, but, more significantly, with fractured families, with drugs and promiscuous sex, and with the omnipresent distractions of a materialistic society. The protagonist of Caretta Caretta is a fifteen-year-old juvenile dellinquent, the product of a dysfunctional family. Alone, forced to reside in a halfway house with other delinquents, he meets Isabella. She introduces him to turtles: "Caretta Caretta", the most beautiful animal they have ever seen becomes the object of their quest.