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THE STORY SNAIL by Anne Rockwell

THE STORY SNAIL

By

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 1974
Publisher: Macmillan

Because you cannot do anything well but are good and kind, I will give you a gift,"" says the magic story snail to John with proper fairy tale logic, and when the gift of 100 stories wears out (the other children become bored with hearing the same ones), John goes off to ask for more. A magic word (Fuzzbuzzoncetherewas!) learned from an elf whose untold tales have turned to mushrooms, plus a kind deed and a brave one, win John access to the snail, who can't give him any more stories after all but sends him home with enough experience to create his own. Rockwell's low-keyed, decorative illustrations of picture book landscapes and children in prim turn-of-the-(19th)century costumes help sustain the nonserious make-believe tone of this pleasingly modest moral fantasy.