And Still the Turtle Watched is a book written by Sheila MacGill-Callahan with watercolor illustrations by Barry Moser. The tale is inspired by a petroglyph now located in the New York botanical gardens.
A stone turtle carved by a Delaware man to be the protective eyes of a manitou watches as the riverbend it overlooks is overtaken by newcomers. Over the years the land becomes polluted, but there's still hope of renewal.
- The Big Rotten Apple: As the city of New York slowly grows around the turtle things get worse and worse with the turtle ending up blinded by spray paint, though it ends on a more upbeat note with the turtle being relocated to the botanical gardens.
- End of an Age: The Delaware visits to the turtle lessen until they stop altogether, and then newcomers who don't recognize the worn carving arrive and everything changes.
- Evil Colonialist: The stone turtle fears the change when the Delaware children stop visiting and newcomers arrive who chop down the forest.
- Fate Worse than Death: Some teenagers graffiti the turtle and paint over it's eyes, making it so it can no longer see which is it's only purpose.
- Friend to All Children: The turtle wants nothing more than to watch over children and be visited by them.
- Green Aesop: Is a book about the slow pollution and recovery of an area.
- Magical Native American: The Delaware man carved the turtle to watch over the river bend, and it then does so for centuries.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: The turtle gets the paint cleaned off and finds itself in a botanical garden, once again visited by children and surrounded by those appreciating plant life.
- Seasonal Baggage: The turtle prefers the summer when the children visit it to the snow of winter and falling leaves of fall.
