Never Eat a Tortoise

💡 Did You Know?

This story was released as a picture book published in 1985 by Hippo Books from Scolastic under the same title. It features a few differences:

• Instead of telling Fat Tulip to run all over the garden, he instructs him to sprint right round the grass, leap across the pond and finish with a neat somersault. Fat Tulip says he'll start next week, but Thin Tim insists he does it now and blows a whistle for emphasis.
• Fat Tulip ends up falling into the pond, Winston the Waterboatman tries to warn the other insects, but is too late.The resulting splash upsets a team of tadpoles playing water polo. This replaces the scene in the show where Thin Tim gives Fat Tulip a thimble full of water.
• When Sylv tells Lewis Collins that nobody wants to take over the garden, he replies "That's 'cos I'm here protecting you."
• In the show, it is mentioned that Ernie and Sylv were playing with snail shells. The book elaborates that they were playing snooker.
• Lewis Collins is disguised as a waste paper basket (with an old newspaper and a crisp packet stuck to his shell) when Ernie and Sylv watch Fat Tulip first go into the shed with his supply of food.
• When Lewis Collins has disguised himself as a fruit cake, Sylv tells him that she and Ernie can't see him before he can say it to them.
• Fat Tulip thinks Sylv is a monster rather than a ghost when she pops out of a Swiss roll he wanted to eat.