Snail, Where Are You?

I have a friend who shares my love of picture books, and we sometimes talk about the gap between the competent and the inspired.

Tomi Ungerer is Exhibit A among "The Inspired"; he was anointed, by Maurice Sendak, as a "spectacular graphic genius," and his Three Robbers, his Rufus, his Crictor .....all haunt many readers to this day.

In "Snail, Where Are You?" Ungerer has a simple idea. He finds the coil of a snail shell in many surprising spots, among natural and man-made things. He, Ungerer, asks the reader to locate the snail in several images.

This would simply be cute, but then there are also the special touches. The title--"WHERE ARE YOU?"--emerges as a song from a large tuba, which is itself "a snail." (A tuba coils like a snail.) The snails announce themselves in witty ways. One is the little curl in a foamy crest: "I'm riding the waves." One is the endpoint of a silly jester's cap: "I'm tops." Still another is the crazy eye of an owl: "I'm looking at you."

I think of Eric Carle; you believe you've seen an owl, but then you see an *Ungerer* owl....The artist makes you view apparently trite things in a new way.

"Snail" has become synonymous with "Masterpiece," and it's easy to see why. I'm such a fan of this work.

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