Kirkus Reviews QR Code
THE SNAKE: A Very Long Story by Bernard Waber

THE SNAKE: A Very Long Story

By

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 1978
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Though it contains scarcely more than 100 words, this ""very long story"" does extend around the world as Waber's snake journeys across the long, low pages (9fl x 5 3/4). First, his head appears on the left and works its way along the double page until all you see is an undulating green band--and then ""at last the end was in sight."" But as that end wiggles off the right hand edge--""Oh, dear. . . (more turns, blank pages) I am back where I began""--with his head peeking in from the left. Visually boring? Not when the traveler's passage through lands of domes and minarets, snow, flowers, tall buildings, and traffic signs is represented along the bottom of the pages in ever-changing style (and sometimes two combined, as in the freight-crate stencils over Gorkey-esque blobs and squiggles). Miles of fun.