De quoi peut bien rêver un escargot qui passe sa vie à grignoter dans le potager? Herberto est un escargot. Et Herberto a la belle vie! Chaque journée ressemble à la précédente car Herberto n’a qu’un seul objectif : se régaler de montagnes de salades du matin au soir. Il peut alors aller se coucher heureux, le ventre bien rempli. Pourtant, un jour, alors qu’il est à la recherche d’une salade toujours plus savoureuse, Herberto croise des animaux.Et pas n’importe lesquels! Tous semblent très occupés par leurs créations, et chacun réalise une oeuvre de génie! L’araignée tisse une toile merveilleuse, les fourmis se révèlent être des architectes étonnantes, et le scarabée un sculpteur hors pair… Totalement subjugué, Herberto ne peut s’empêcher de louer les qualités de ces véritables artistes tout en regrettant de n’être qu’un simple estomac ambulant sans aucun talent. C’est du moins ce qu’il pense… jusqu’à l’arrivée d’un papillon de nuit porteur de bonnes nouvelles… À partir de quatre ans.
Fresh new talent Lara Hawthorne graduated from Falmouth University in 2013. Her first picture book, Herb, was published in 2014. She is also the illustrator of Carol Ann Duffy’s The King of Christmas. Inspired by nature, myths, and legends, Lara Hawthorne creates wonderful small worlds with her distinct watercolor style. She lives in Bristol, England.
This is a very nice picture book, featuring a lovely slug who enveys the other garden creatures abilities not realising his own.
The illustrations are lovely and I really enjoyed the end pages with information and ideas. It's good to see a book promote a slug as a beautiful and useful creature that should be welcomed into our gardens. I would have liked to have seen the book give a clear message that using slug pellets is extremely damaging to wildlife, but they weren't mentioned.
We have some slugs that come into our boot room and frequently 'decorate'a black velvet riding hat and make it 'prettty', they are wonderful creatures and it's nice to see them appreciated!
This is the most heart-warming story about creativity. And a slug called Herberto! What more do you need? Herberto discovers that he is actually a super creative slug, when he looks at the beautiful pattern's he's made when sliding around the garden. Such a great story to encourage kids (and adults!) to unleash the creative spirit that we all have within us.
Lara's illustrations are so original and painted with such beautiful choice colour palettes. Wonderful.