Slug Needs a Hug!

PreS-Gr 2— Poor slug is "wet and weedy, very, very needy, and always greedy for a hug." Sadly, his mother never hugs him. One at a time, various animals tell slug how he should make himself "more huggable, less slithery and sluggable"—namely, by making himself more like them. Tony Ross's deliciously silly ink and watercolor illustrations are a delightful complement to Jeanne Willis's bouncy rhyming text. When Slug returns to his mother, she doesn't even recognize her son beneath the ersatz fur, feathers, snout, beak, and legs. In the satisfying conclusion, Slug's mother confesses she adores her son as he is: "If I could, I'd hug you darling!" Alas, slugs have no arms "and so…They kissed!" This is a kinder, gentler version of Bernard Waber's classic, You Look Ridiculous, Said the Rhinoceros to the Hippopotamus (Houghton Mifflin, 1973). Both stories stress the absurdity of changing to imitate others, but Willis's tale places more affirming emphasis on the protagonist's innate lovability.