The Snail and the Whale

Product Information

It won the 2004 Early Years award for the best pre-school book, the 2005 Blue Peter award for Best Book to Read Aloud, and the 2007 Giverny award for Best Science Picture Book. This is a story which suggests however small you are and however big the world is you can make a difference.

One night when the tide was high a passing whale spotted her request and duly picked her up on the end of his tail, saying to the snail, 'Come sail with me.The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler is a wonderful rhyming story about a sea snail that is eager to travel the world.

I’m delighted that The Snail and the Whale has been made into a play by Tall Stories and into an animation by Magic Light. And the teacher and the children all rally round, go down to the beach and manage to relaunch the whale. I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise.You could make icebergs with your child by putting water in different shaped containers in a freezer to add to the scene and talk about what happens when the ice melts. Through Axel Scheffler's use of colourful illustrations, the catchy rhyming and alliterations throughout the story, we get to see all of the places that the pair encountered on their travels, including the "towering iceberg", "far-away lands" and " golden sands".