Shell Game! Marcel the Shell: The Most Surprised I've Ever Been by Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate

THIS IS ME, MARCEL!

ONE THING ABOUT A NEW DAY--YOU ABSOLUTELY NEVER KNOW WHERE IT IS GOING TO GO.

Marcel the Shell (With Shoes On) is enjoying the morning by taking a stroll across a blanket with his surrogate dog Alan (a piece of lint). It's not his bed. His bed is a slice of bread. But this bed has a fluffy blanket, which somehow gets Marcel lost in musing about how much he loves cake.

And then someone comes in to make up the bed. Not noticing tiny Marcel and the likewise fluffy Alan, she lifts the blanket and gives it a shake.

I AM SAILING THROUGH THE COOL MORNING AIR 2000 CENTIMETERS OFF THE GROUND.

EVERYTHING LOOKED SO SMALL. I COULD SEE THE WHOLE RUG AND ALL OF ITS FAR-FLUNG FRINGES.

Marcel's world view is changed in a moment. He can see Nana Shell, sleeping in her fancy French bread bed. He looks down on the baby in his crib and ponders what it means.

I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY PUT HIM IN JAIL.

Then Marcel feels that he's reached the apogee of his trajectory in space.

I FELT WEIGHTLESS. I THOUGHT ABOUT ASTRONAUTS.

But what goes up must come down, as so does Marcel, in a most surprising touchdown.

SPLAT!

And Marcel the Shell makes a most propitious soft landing in the fluffy frosting of a birthday cake, in Jenny Slate's and Dean Fleischer-Camp's second Marcel story, Marcel the Shell: The Most Surprised I've Ever Been (Razor Bill, 2014). Marcel is an ironic, solipsistic shell. The world is huge and mostly unknown, but Marcel's naively self-centered but philosophical take on the world is a unique narration, and Fleischer-Dean's unusual drawings, making full use of the chance for a mollusk-eye-view of Marcel's known world from space, set this one off with just the right touch of sly irony. Best read with Slate's and Fleischer-Camp's first book, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On: Things About Me (See review here).

"Visually clever and verbally unusual," says Kirkus.

For an animated view of Marcel's one-of-a-kind voice, watch Marcel's gone-viral introductory film here, where can also see Marcel and his creators interviewed by the like of Brian Williams and Conan O'Brien.

Shell Game: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On: Things About Me by Jenny Slate

My name is Marcel. And I am partially a shell.

This is my Breadroom.

It's a bedroom but I sleep on a piece of bread, so I just call it my Breadroom.

Forget curious little monkeys and perky pig girls in red-striped pajamas, French-loving fashionistas, rambunctious retriever puppies, even jolly old St. Nick, and all the rest of the usual storybook suspects this season. The media superstar is Marcel. A univalve mollusk seems a strange protagonist for the holiday season, but in her sudden best-seller Marcel the Shell With Shoes On: Things About Me (Razor Bill, 2011) Jenny Slate and her talented graphic media magician Amy Lind prove once more than imagination trumps all.

Marcel has one big eye, a mouth, and wears orangy "shoes" with which he somehow achieves locomotion of a most primitive sort. Marcel mostly likes himself and his cozy lifestyle. He lives on a bureau top, in his Breadroom (two slices of bread inside which he snuggles when it time to got to bed), his "Aquarium" (a standard-issue goldfish bowl), an amusement park (an assortment of plastic toys and other objects), with a view of the monuments (a shelf of sports trophies), and his very own devoted pet:

My one regret in life...is that I'll never have a dog.

But sometimes I tie a hair to a piece of lint and drag it around.

His name is Alan.

He doesn't know any tricks or anything.

Tell him to roll over.... See?

Marcel makes do with found objects to amuse himself. His favorite thrill? Scaling a platform sandal, wearing a pistachio shell as a protective helmet, and sliding down from heel to toe. His favorite theme park ride? The Ladle. The worst ride? The scary Salad Spinner It's an exciting but exhausting life for Marcel, causing him to repair to his refuge, the Breadroom, for a rest.

Could you shut the book, please?

I'm trying to go to bread!

After having become a viral internet star and taking prizes at the Sundance and New York International Children's Film Festival, Marcel the Shell and his famous shoes have, er, left their footprints in the sands of, um, media stardom and ventured forth to scale (or whatever sea snails do) the last challenging height, the world of picture book print.

Marcel's deadpan voice is just as unique, and artist Lind plays with perspective, using both long and close-up "lenses" in her droll portrayals of her snail-like hero which intrigue the eye. The book begins with a nostalgic long view of a doorway, a comfy room beyond with a traditional child's chest of drawers sporting a fishbowl, the usual kid toys haphazardly topping it, a magnifying glass, and a small ... something in the center. As the illustrations "zoom in," the something is seen to be the loquacious and self-revelatory Marcel in his round, orange-accented "shoes," ready to take us on a narrative tour of his imaginative world. It's all great fun, and kids, whose imaginations are perhaps less jaded than those of adults, will "get" Marcel right away. The understated humor and matter-of-fact absurdity of the whole premise has proven to have a fresh appeal that has made Marcel a mollusk media sensation!

Kirkus Reviews puts it perkily and persuasively: "The sky's the limit for this winning, winsome, wee mollusk."