Red Snake Blue Snake
Olivier Tallec
Gecko Press

In this story we spend a day with Red Snake and Blue Snake: the pair have been close friends since they were small but they see things very differently. We join the friends as they’re doing their morning yoga and while doing an inversion they look skywards. Blue Snake comments thus, “See that cloud? It looks like a huge pirate hat.” “No it doesn’t. It looks like you when you’ve eaten too much,” comes the response from Red Snake, but wanting the last word, Blue Snake insists that this is nonsense.

Off they slither through the countryside through fields and sand dunes guided by the power lines above. Red Snake then remarks on the blueness of the morning sky, but Red Snake immediately naysays this maintaining that it’s grey and eventually they comprise on blue-grey, or as Blue Snake wants to put it, “ …grey-blue.” (Last word again.)

There’s more to disagree over as they continue their journey – the shape of a particular cactus, the view through a pair of binoculars lying on the ground and after a real spat, the view from atop a power pole. They disagree about the intentions of a human sitting on a rock playing a flute:

this almost ends in them being captured and after beating a hasty retreat, the puddle they quench their thirst from. Come nightfall they lie watching the clouds drifting once again: will either of them comment?

As always Tallec’s brand of comedy engages readers’ minds with its cleverness, this time as he shows how opposing viewpoints can both be equally true. Maybe it’s the lenses through which we see the world that make the difference. There’s much to enjoy and talk about with a class or group of children after sharing this tale of limbless characters slithering and observing the world around them.