Amazon.com Review
Vivian Walsh and J. otto Seibold (
Olive, the Other Reindeer,
Penguin Dreams) create another winning, whimsical world in
Gluey: A Snail Tale. The story begins when a bunny named Celerina finds a beautiful, empty house and moves right in. Little does she know, a snail named Gluey lives there, too, fixing all the house's cracks as carpenter snails like to do. One day, Celerina breaks a vase! Gluey tells her he could fix it, but his voice is so soft, she can't hear him. That night, he slowly repairs her vase. As this sort of gluey alchemy continues to happen, Celerina becomes more and more convinced her house is magic. She decides to have a tea party to prove to her skeptical friends that dishes would be repaired before their very eyes in her enchanted house! Of course, when the party derails into a plate-breaking free-for-all, the house itself collapses into pieces. Seibold's sophisticated, retro, stylized illustrations and color palette are no less than fantastic, and Gluey is perhaps the cutest children's book snail of all time. Children will be crushed by the injustice Celerina shows Gluey, then overjoyed at the end when they become friends. (Ages 5 and older)
--Karin Snelson
From Publishers Weekly
Walsh and Seibold, whose offbeat characters include Mr. Lunch and Olive, the Other Reindeer, introduce a prepossessing and generous escargot. "Once upon a time... in a lovely meadow a stone's throw away... A bunny found an empty house and moved right in." Celerina, the rabbit, does not realize her new home is kept in good shape by Gluey, an ecru-green "carpenter snail" who loves fixing cracks. (Although his patching technique is not shown, he pores over a repair manual and lifts broken objects with his antennae.) When Celerina breaks a vase, Gluey puts it back together overnight. Yet the snail is too small to be seen or heard, so Celerina attributes her luck to her "magic" house. She proudly plans a party to show it off, and while she's tidying up, she meets Gluey and disgustedly "flick[s] him across the meadow." Celerina's darling name is much sweeter than she is; Seibold gives her a cynical cupid's-bow mouth and wicked Bette Davis eyes. But Gluey-whose blue-gray shell gets slightly damaged in his landing-does not hold a grudge, and Celerina comes to realize her error. Walsh creates suspense and sympathy around the snail's travails, and Seibold's images of the skeptical bunny and some gnomish "Wee Folk" are tongue-in-cheek charming. Shiny, translucent lines suggest sticky effluvium on the cover of this peculiarly appealing fable. All ages.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
