Bedtime in the rainforest: our children's books of Tortuguero

Kids come to Tortuguero and meet a basilisk lizard sprinting across the canal on its back legs. They watch a green sea turtle haul herself onto the same beach where she was born. They wake up to a howler monkey at sunrise — once, and never forget. We wanted to give them a way to take those moments home.

So we wrote a small bedside library of original picture books, one creature per story, all set right here in Tortuguero. Four titles to start. For ages 4–8. Each book is around six pages — short enough for one bedtime, long enough to leave a memory.

The first four

• The Day Bali Ran on Water — Bali the basilisk lizard, the “Jesus Christ lizard” of the canals, learns what his oversized feet are really for.
• Lula’s First Night — a green sea turtle hatchling finds the ocean for the first time, on the same sand where her mother nested.
• Momo’s First Howl — a young howler monkey discovers the voice that travels three kilometres through the canopy.
• Mati the Manatee and the Quiet Canal — a curious manatee calf explores the slow water where the canal meets the lagoon.

Browse all the children’s books →

How they came to be

These stories were written with AI and illustrated to feel like the Caribbean canopy you can see from your room — warm, watery, full of green. They aren’t classroom curriculum and they aren’t trying to be. They’re the kind of book a tired parent reads aloud in a screened room with the rainforest sounds outside, the kind a child asks for again the next night.

If your kids stayed with us and went home with a new favourite animal, this is for them.