The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story

Product Description

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.

From 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., Bostonα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Review

★ “A poetic introduction to evolution, mutation, and the necessary reproduction to achieve both along the way. Author Popova takes readers on a journey through time, beginning with the emergence of single-celled organisms and ending on another one-in-a-million chance: a potential future snail with a particular, rare recessive gene. Gentle, lyrical text briefly outlines the evolution of modern life on Earth before introducing Jeremy, a common garden snail with a rare left-spiraling shell, found by chance by a human scientist who had recently listened to a snail researcher on the radio… Zhu’s soft, opaque illustrations of life on Earth, prehistoric and modern, micro and macro, are sure to enchant readers of all ages. The oversized trim allows her to play up the snail’s tininess in long perspectives, and close-ups are luscious; both enhance the narration’s sense of playful awe. A story as charmingly mesmerizing as a silvery snail’s trail on a summer morning.” ―STARRED REVIEW, Kirkus
“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 bi