Serge was a snail without a shell. His mum and his dad were shell-less as well. “You’re no more than a SLUG!” the snails at school taunted. I wish I had a shell. It was all that Serge wanted.

Serge is not like the snails at school. They call him a horrible name—slug—and even though that’s entirely what he is, he wishes for a shell of his own.

Feeling like an outcast, Serge sets off on a solo adventure in search of the elusive shell that will make a perfect home—and make him just like everybody else. After some much-needed advice from his friend Fish, he finds himself at the ocean, where many options await: “Big shells and teeny shells/ All the in-betweeny shells/ Pyramid and swirly shells/Altogether curly shells!”

But can Serge find the perfect shell, or is he destined to be different forever?

A charming, lyrical story with bouncy text, whimsically illustrated by artist Andrea Blinick, Serge the Snail Without A Shell puts a modern twist on a tale as old as time: trying to fit in at all costs, before realizing that maybe being yourself is best of all.

Harriet Alida Lye is a writer from Richmond Hill, Ontario. She studied Philosophy and English at the University of King's College in Halifax and lived in Paris for the better part of eight years. She founded and edited Her Royal Majesty, a literary arts magazine that ran for six years and published James Franco, Robert Hass, and the first-ever short story by Alice Munro. Her fiction, essays, and reporting have been published by VICE, Hazlitt, Happy Reader, The Guardian, The National Post, and more. Harriet now lives in Toronto, and works at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. This is her first novel.

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