A few years ago, Tom Marien got in touch with me to ask if I wanted to illustrate a picture book about a headstrong little slug—a story he had originally written for his daughter, who has a fondness for all things crawly in the garden, including gardener’s nemesis and ugly duckling relatives of the much more lovable snails: slugs.
It tells the tale of a little slug who goes through life in a straight line, never once straying from his path, even if this greatly inconveniences him and others around him. But along his long, long journey, Slug has some unexpected and colourful encounters that shed new light on the way he sees himself and the world around him.
One morning, I went out to my vegetable garden to discover the remnants of what must have been a veritable ‘slug party’ in the salad patch. But my initial horror soon turned into amazement when I saw how the morning sun reflected almost iridescently on the zig-zagging chaos of slimy slug trails. And even though I lost some salads, what did grow abundantly was a childlike joy of following along these otherwise nearly invisible trails, wondering what adventures these curious creatures had the night before.
This experience turned out to be an essential inspiration for the picture book. I wanted to invite children to experience the book in a more tactile way—a way to actively and literally be able to follow the adventures of Slug with their fingers. Wanting to mimic the iridescent sheen and sticky sensation of the slime, the slimy trail left behind on each page by Slug has been printed using a spot varnish.
