Some Smug Slug: the letter S to the super surprising summation

Some Smug Slug (Pamela Duncan Edwards | Henry Cole)

Sometimes someone might staunchly assume a simple book shall certainly be simple to read. Such books may serve as evidence supporting the opposite. Some Smug Slug is a single silver straw standing out in a serving of standard yellow straw. Striving to solidify conceptually, it sometimes stumbles. Sneakily, it still suffices to supplant itself as a super-champ of spawn book love.

In all seriousness, SS Slug is like an amazing spectacular sinking ship (see what is did there? Yeah? Yeah??) overflowing with gold and jewels and poor little puppies. You want to look away, but you cannot.

This book requires a read before you start with the kiddos. It is filled to the brim with S words. To. The. Brim. Every page painfully projects alliterative postured prose, perfectly placed. The difficult reading distracts you from the trudging plot line of a slug slowly moving up a hill. The hill that is not a hill, but in fact, impending doom..

Doom doom dooom!

But wait? What is that at the end? It is an explanation of why you should read this twice!! Each page is covered with S words, s animals, hidden letter S's exist on every page. It is an Lisp treasure hunt of joy and doomy doom.

Perspective from my Spawn:

Laughter. Crazy laughter and rapid flippings of the last and next to last pages. Spoiler ahead (this is a kid book, so get over it). The hill is a toad, and in the final page, the toad eats the slug. My son finds this to be the coolest concept ever. A book where the protagonist dies and the slimy toad gets fed. Twice a night, and moved from room to room. Though he has yet to do so, sometimes I think he is going to tell ME the story.

My 11 month old daughter is naturally attracted to the giddy laughter of Spawn1. The joy of this book does bring her via quick crawl when it is being read, so that is pretty awesome She likes to sit and watch this book being read, but has no desire to participate in the reading, it is definitely something she wants because Spawn1 wants it.. Plus, It is a real paper book, not one of those 'baby books'.

Adult perspective:

Practically every animal in this book would eat a slug. I felt it was a bit disingenuous to see a sparrow or a skink trying to warn a slug of his mistaken trek toward the mouth of death.. Why would they not eat it themselves? Were they full after gorging in various slug relatives? Are their veiled warning nothing more than the wilderness version of skipping seconds and saving more for later?

The last page had me laughing aloud in surprise and not so silently applauding the author. Seriously, this was great. It is worth the tongue twisters.

There are obvious areas where the author was stretching for the thesaurus to find an S word that would fit. This is definitely forgiven, though I have a couple words I need to look up but can never remember till they are mid sentence. '[...] Which is a word daddy needs to look up [...]" is proudly inserted into the story every time.. Hasn't helped me remember, though.

Graciously provided by my 'Badass Alaskan Cousin Crew' (Mary and Ramon), Some Smug Slug was a story none of us had heard of. They found it on their honeymoon. Dragged it up to our area (mental high fives all around for this). Amazing choice and highly appreciated ;)

Another slug book was also gifted. Possible review to follow. It details slug etiquette, fat slugs vs sporty ones. Also contains near death by eating, though survival is the final event.