The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story
by Maria Popova (Author) Ping Zhu (Illustrator)
Based on a real scientific event and inspired by a beloved real human in the author's life, this is a story about science and the poetry of existence; about time and chance, genetics and gender, love and death, evolution and infinity -- concepts often too abstract for the human mind to fathom, often more accessible to the young imagination; concepts made fathomable in the concrete, finite life of one tiny, unusual creature dwelling in a pile of compost amid an English garden.
Emerging from this singular life is a lyrical universal invitation not to mistake difference for defect and to welcome, across the accordion scales of time and space, diversity as the wellspring of the universe's beauty and resilience.
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Publishers Weekly
In a paean to the value of individual differences that is presented on a cosmic scale, Brain Pickings founder Popova (Figuring, for adults) relates the real-life story of Jeremy, a rare garden snail found in 2015 by a retired London scientist, whose shell spiraled to the left, signifying reversed internal anatomy--including a heart positioned on the right. Because of this, Jeremy, a hermaphrodite like all garden snails, required a similarly rare mate to procreate. Against a backdrop of biology, history, and genetics, Popova calls attention to differences of ability and the problem of the gender binary. In doing so, she elegantly underscores the desirability of genetic and other kinds of diversity, which is "always lovelier than sameness" and makes communities "stronger and better able to adapt to change." The book succeeds more as allegory than as informational text, with passages that bounce between metaphorical and scientific descriptions of gastropod reproduction and genetics. Ping Zhu's (The Strange Birds of Flannery O'Connor) art, however, turns a book about a humble snail into a riot of vibrant color, making for a celebration of the "strange and lovely little snail with a left-coiling shell and a right heart" that is shot through with a strange loveliness of its very own. Ages 7-12. (Feb.)
Copyright 2021 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.School Library Journal
Gr 2-4--This long, complex science picture book begins with a poetic description of the ancient origin of snails. A mysterious event (mutation) caused living creatures to form in the ocean. Mutation is a theme throughout the text, with the featured snail demonstrating the effect of recessive genes. The book's title might suggest that this is a story with a moral, but it's a biological indication of this snail's irregular physical characteristics. Its shell swirls to the left, unlike that of most snails, and its heart is located on the right rather than the left side of its body. Later on in the narrative, Dr. Angus Davidson asks everyday citizens to be on the lookout for other right-hearted snails for him to breed and study. Could such irregular genetic occurrences apply to humans? The text then explains snails' sexual identity and how they reproduce. Snails are hermaphrodites: Their bodies are both male and female. However, two snails often copulate "because diversity is always lovelier than sameness, and because it makes communities stronger and more able to adapt to change." Davidson's attempts at breeding are anti-climactic. He does not find any new right-hearted snails, but someday this rarity could occur again. Zhu's softly swirled paintings are rendered in shades of blue, green, orange, and yellow. VERDICT The romantic and anthropomorphic aspects of the story and explanations will appeal to some adult readers, and some parents and teachers may find this useful for introductory discussions of genetics, diversity, or evolution with children.--Margaret Bush, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 2021 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Maria Popova is a reader and a writer, and writes about what she reads on
Brain Pickings (brainpickings.org), which is included in the Library of
Congress permanent web archive of culturally valuable materials. She is the
author of Figuring, co-editor of
A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, and the creator and host
of The Universe in Verse--an annual charitable celebration of science through
poetry at the interdisciplinary cultural center Pioneer Works in Brooklyn.
Ping Zhu's illustrations are frequently seen in the New York Times and
other reputable publications, but also some questionable ones. She is a
graduate of ArtCenter and gave tours there as a work-study job. In 2013, she
won the ADC Young Guns award for being simultaneously young and talented.
Though she is no longer eligible for "30 Under 30" accolades, her goal in life
is to create work that will ideally age well like a fine wine. Or even an okay
wine. Ping's children's book debut,
The Strange Birds of Flannery O'Connor, A Life, published in June 2020
and was selected by the New York Times as a Best Children's Book of
2020.
Snails
Genes
DNA
