Snippet the Early Riser

Having previously examined the sleeping woes of the very tiny in Buglette, the Messy Sleeper, Murguia returns with another nighttime problem every family will recognize: Snippet the snail wakes up at sunrise and can’t get his family to play with him. To rouse them, Snippet and his insect friends try making music and bouncing on “the bed” (the leaf underneath which the family sleeps), before Snippet decides to make them breakfast. He chomps right through their leaf, delivering them into the heap of soft leaf bits he’s prepared—the snail equivalent of making pancakes for everybody. Text alternates with smartly worded speech balloons (“Are you gonna eat those stems?” Snippet’s father asks his wife). Seeing the world of common garden undergrowth at many times life size is one attraction of this low-key book, and Murguia’s limpid watercolors and adorable snails charm, too. She has given much thought to what slow-moving snails can and cannot do for recreation, and information on the endpapers (“Snails can pull up to 200 times their weight”) playfully augments the main story. Ages 3–6. Agent: Mary Kole, Moveable Type Management. (Mar.)