Maria Popova is a reader and a writer, and writes about
what she reads on Brain Pickings (brainpickings.org), which is
included in the Library of Congress permanent web archive of
culturally valuable materials. She is the author of Figuring,
co-editor of A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, and
the creator and host of The Universe in Verse—an annual charitable
celebration of science through poetry at the interdisciplinary
cultural center Pioneer Works in Brooklyn.
Ping Zhu’s illustrations are frequently seen in the New York
Times and other reputable publications, but also some questionable
ones. She is a graduate of ArtCenter and gave tours there as a
work-study job. In 2013, she won the ADC Young Guns award for being
simultaneously young and talented. Though she is no longer eligible
for “30 Under 30” accolades, her goal in life is to create work
that will ideally age well like a fine wine. Or even an okay wine.
Ping’s children’s book debut, The Strange Birds of Flannery
O’Connor, A Life, published in June 2020 and was selected by the
New York Times as a Best Children’s Book of 2020.
★ A Kirkus Best Book of 2021: A Best Informational Picture Book
★
★ A Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings) Best Children’s Book of
2021 ★
★ A Spirituality & Practice Best Spiritual Book of 2021 ★★ “A
poetic introduction to evolution, mutation, and the necessary
reproduction to achieve both along the way. Author Popova takes
readers on a journey through time, beginning with the emergence of
single-celled organisms and ending on another one-in-a-million
chance: a potential future snail with a particular, rare recessive
gene. Gentle, lyrical text briefly outlines the evolution of modern
life on Earth before introducing Jeremy, a common garden snail with
a rare left-spiraling shell, found by chance by a human scientist
who had recently listened to a snail researcher on the radio...
Zhu’s soft, opaque illustrations of life on Earth, prehistoric and
modern, micro and macro, are sure to enchant readers of all ages.
The oversized trim allows her to play up the snail’s tininess in
long perspectives, and close-ups are luscious; both enhance the
narration’s sense of playful awe. A story as charmingly mesmerizing
as a silvery snail’s trail on a summer morning.” —STARRED REVIEW,
Kirkus “In a paean to the value of individual differences that is
presented on a cosmic scale, Brain Pickings founder Popova
(Figuring, for adults) relates the real-life story of Jeremy, a
rare garden snail found in 2015 by a retired London scientist,
whose shell spiraled to the left, signifying reversed internal
anatomy—including a heart positioned on the right. Because of this,
Jeremy, a hermaphrodite like all garden snails, required a
similarly rare mate to procreate. Against a backdrop of biology,
history, and genetics, Popova calls attention to differences of
ability and the problem of the gender binary. In doing so, she
elegantly underscores the desirability of genetic and other kinds
of diversity, which is ‘always lovelier than sameness’ and makes
communities ‘stronger and better able to adapt to change.’ Ping
Zhu’s (The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor) art, however, turns
a book about a humble snail into a riot of vibrant color, making
for a celebration of the ‘strange and lovely little snail with a
left-coiling shell and a right heart’ that is shot through with a
strange loveliness of its very own.” —Publishers Weekly “The Snail
With the Right Heart, written by Maria Popova and illustrated by
Ping Zhu, tells the extraordinary true story of Jeremy, the lefty
snail. Snails with left-spiraling shells are a one-in-a-million
rarity, and the search for a mate for Jeremy became a British media
sensation. Popova’s lyrical retelling and Ping Zhu’s simple,
charming artwork add so much to an already marvelous story,
introducing readers to the genetic significance of Jeremy’s rare
mutation and to the concept of deep time (and how life exists
within it).” —The New York Times “A book that dares to play with
storytelling and science in a wholly different way... Popova has
managed to do what some of the best nonfiction is capable of
accomplishing. She has taken a true story and breathed life into it
to make it human... And the art is just stunning... The art appears
to be watercolors, and the colors just pop. While most garden
variety snails are not usually considered the most colorful of
critters, Ping finds broad sweeps of color in other places. From
the metaphorical parade of evolution to the final image of a sun
setting and the sky a red-orange-yellow-blue-purple-pink throb of
tones, this is a treat to the eye.” —Elizabeth Bird, A Fuse #8
Production (A School Library Journal Blog) “Popova skillfully
employs metaphor to connect Jeremy's story to the underlying
science of evolution, as in presenting the explanation of why
snails, who can reproduce on their own, prefer to seek a mate:
‘because diversity is always lovelier than sameness, and because it
makes communities stronger and better able to adapt to change.’ …
Zhu's illustrations, filled with swirling expanses of color,
brilliantly portray the concept of a recessive gene as a tiny but
persistent snail silhouette inches across the pages and through
geologic time.” —The Horn Book
“This lovely and informative picture book celebrates the rare life
of Jeremy, a snail with a left-spiraling shell. [Popova] starts
with an introduction to evolution that puts Jeremy’s unlikely
mutation and even his random discovery by a British scientist into
context. She gently and respectfully describes snails’
hermaphrodite nature and unusual reproductive process and follows
the worldwide quest for a left-swirling mate. It’s a fascinating
story and I loved that Popova managed to combine science and lyric
sentences in a way that will invite questions and discussion... Zhu
uses stunning watercolors for her illustrations. Every thick
textured page is so supersaturated with hue that the pages still
look damp... The snails themselves are well-suited to watercolor,
with their dainty tentacles and shells built of overlapping swirls
of pigment. One giant central trifold shows a colorful garden full
of flowers; young readers can pour over it to find the snail. This
is a philosophical and beautiful celebration of being different.”
—Youth Services Book Review “Inspired by a true story, this picture
book is a touching mix of poetic description and scientific facts.
Popova’s language embraces the reader, showing them the beauty and
wonder in mutation, genetics and evolution... She writes with real
intention both to reveal the amazing nature around us but also to
describe the science, including Jeremy’s mirror image body, the way
that snails mate, and the work of the scientists who cared enough
to explore his mutation. Zhu’s illustrations are awash in colors,
from the blues of the original waters of life to the rich green of
English gardens. Done in watercolor swirls and drips, the
illustrations are a mix of close ups from a snail’s view and the
bustle of humans transporting Jeremy and the other snails. There is
even a lovely foldout page that invites readers to even more fully
enter the depths of the garden. Full of wonder and science.”
—Waking Brain Cells ★ “A retired scientist who—right after hearing
a snail researcher interviewed on the radio—serendipitously comes
upon a most unusual garden snail: its shell spirals the opposite
direction from ordinary snails, left instead of right… This
marvelous book by Maria Popova of Brain Pickings fame tells
the story of this wise scientist's decision to send the little
snail in a cozy box to the researcher, in case ‘its strangeness
held some beautiful secret waiting to be unlocked.’ ... Because
Popova's mind grasps a cosmic scope, she begins this whole story
not with the snail, but way back ‘long ago, before half the stars
that speckle the sky were born.’ By taking into account the scope
of time up until the snail's discovery, she can gently unlock for
young readers (ages 7-12 years) the marvels of mutation, [then]
explore the wonder of genes, ‘like tiny seeds your parents plant in
the garden that becomes your body.’ Never for a moment does this
scientific story become dry. It is laced throughout with poetic
imagery and humor.… At every step of the way, illustrator Ping Zhu
is the perfect partner for these wide-ranging reflections on
uniqueness, gender, love, and the grandeur of the universe.”
—Patricia Campbell Carlson, Spirituality & Practice
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