Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell

by Sue Hendra, Paul Linnet, Sue Hendra (Illustrator)

Overview

Norman the Slug is looking for a perfect shell—but can he find his match? Find out in this “fantastically bold and fun picture book that will teach children the importance of accepting who you are” (Junior News and Mail).

Norman is a slug who longs to be a snail—if only he could find the perfect shell! He tries a tennis ball, an apple, and even an alarm clock but none of them feels quite right. Until one day, Norman stumbles upon a doughnut! What could be better than that? But is that sweet shell really the perfect fit?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481490320
Publisher:	Aladdin
Publication date:	12/12/2017
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	10.20(w) x 10.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Sue Hendra studied illustration at Brighton University while also selling doughnuts from a kiosk at Chessington Zoo. Sue has now illustrated over 100 books for children. When Sue met Paul Linnet she found another person with the same silly sense of humor as her and they fell in love and started writing and illustrating together. Their creative brilliance soon led them to come up with a wealth of bestselling, award-winning picture books including Barry the Fish with Fingers, Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell, Supertato, and the Laugh Out Loud Book Award–winning I Need a Wee!. Sue and Paul live in Brighton with their daughter Wanda who inspired Sue’s picture book and TV series Wanda and the Alien.

Paul Linnet was born by the sea near to Brighton, but he grew up in Derby, where he studied graphic design and played guitar in a band called The Chihuahuas. Eventually Paul moved back to Brighton where he met Sue Hendra and they instantly fell in love. Their celebrated picture book partnership has created many bestselling, award-winning books including Barry the Fish with Fingers, Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell, Supertato, and most recently the Laugh Out Loud Book Award–winning I Need a Wee. Sue and Paul live with their daughter Wanda in a house in Brighton where Paul likes to fuss about with an old motorbike and still plays the guitar.

Sue Hendra studied illustration at Brighton University while also selling doughnuts from a kiosk at Chessington Zoo. Sue has now illustrated over 100 books for children. When Sue met Paul Linnet she found another person with the same silly sense of humor as her and they fell in love and started writing and illustrating together. Their creative brilliance soon led them to come up with a wealth of bestselling, award-winning picture books including Barry the Fish with Fingers, Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell, Supertato, and the Laugh Out Loud Book Award–winning I Need a Wee!. Sue and Paul live in Brighton with their daughter Wanda who inspired Sue’s picture book and TV series Wanda and the Alien.

Editorial Reviews

10/02/2017
As a slug, Norman admires the patterned shells on snails’ backs. And who can blame him? In Hendra’s vivid illustrations, their shells are as bright and enticing as peppermint candies. But the snails have no interest in Norman. When he inadvertently ruins a game they are playing, one snail sniffs, “This only works if you’ve got a shell.” Norman takes this as a challenge and tries on a variety of potential shells: a tennis ball proves “too bouncy,” an alarm clock is “too noisy,” and a worm-infested apple is “already taken.” Norman gets the snails’ seal of approval after he straps a pink-frosted doughnut with sprinkles to his back (“Ta-da! A shell!”)—until a bird swoops down and snatches the doughnut, with Norman still attached. Though Norman has been unhappy with his identity throughout the book, he uses his innate slug talent to escape: “He made slime—lots and lots of it!” Don’t look for just-be-yourself messages here: Hendra (Dragon Jelly) ends with a goofy scene that indicates that Norman isn’t done trying out life as other creatures. Ages 4–8. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

2017-08-27
A slug with shell envy finds a worthy surrogate—and then something even better.With a fine disregard for logic, internal or otherwise, Hendra sends her bright orange slug out to find a shell so that he can join the smiling snails in their play. After failed experiments with a tennis ball, an apple, and an alarm clock tied on his back (neat tricks, considering his total lack of limbs), he straps himself beneath a discarded doughnut. This draws a bird ("Quick, slither for your lives," counterintuitively cry the snails to one another) that carries Norman off. Sliming himself free of the doughnut (which the bird also drops, for some reason) in midair, Norman falls onto a clothesline. The surprisingly nonharrowing experience has made him eager now to take to the air, so he somehow turns a pair of underpants into a stiff glider. Off he flies with a "Ta-da!" to leave readers admiring his resourcefulness and also, more than likely, disoriented by the story's arbitrary swerves. The common desire to fit in gets a silly, if not particularly clever or well-knit, take. (Picture book. 5-7)

Kirkus Reviews