Sugar and Snails

January 8, 2018
A boy, a girl, and an elderly man—presumably their grandfather—deconstruct the saying that boys are made of snails and puppy dog tails and girls from sugar and spice. Tsiang (The Stone Hatchlings) opens with the three sitting around the breakfast table, but they’re quickly transported into a freewheeling world of imagination as they debate the rhyme. “I don’t wear dresses!” insists the girl after the man suggests that girls might instead be made of “Dresses and sweets and everything neat.” (Oddly, she’s wearing a dress when she makes this claim.) Soon, their ideas are flying back and forth, letting Wimmer (A Surprise for Mrs. Tortoise) run wild with the possibilities in her surreal mixed-media caricatures. “Maybe it was that boys are made of lightning and newts... and rubber rain boots,” writes Tsiang as the boy, dressed like a superhero, launches skyward on a slice of toast. Whimsical transformations come fast and furious, and, although the text is framed in binary boy-girl terms, readers will sense that stereotypes and norms are dissolving with each page turn. Ages 4–7.

February 15, 2018
A whimsical reimagination of the familiar nursery rhyme that celebrates creativity and exploration instead of gender stereotypes.When a white-haired grandfather shares the well-known "sugar and spice" poem about what little girls and boys are made of, his grandchildren react to the gender stereotypes. "I don't wear dresses," says the older sister. "And I don't like frogs," grumps the brother. The grandfather then unravels the saying by exploring new ingredients for the children. "Okay, so boys are made of cookies and spice...and jump-roping mice?" The creative couplets blossom into fantastic images, with Wimmer's illustrations leaping off the page, coaxing readers closer to inhale the details. The characters have Asian features, but little else is overtly Asian. The children imagine becoming whales and bumblebees and lemon desserts, while kitchen items serve as visual anchors. Drawn with traditional gender cues (the older sister has long hair and graceful limbs, while the tousled younger brother exudes high energy and mischievousness), this remake is still refreshingly current, allowing both children to try out different flights of whimsy as the wise grandfather and the pointy-snouted dog stand as witnesses. The last illustration is the literal unraveling of the sampler of the traditional poem that opened the book. A celebration of imagination and the limitlessness of life. (Picture book. 4-8)

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