YA. When the Yellow Slugs Sing

 When the Yellow Slugs Sing is a suspense story written by a teacher to grow awareness of the problem of endangered species and construction development. 

It's the serious story you can't read without laughing. 

Jill Jumpy races home when she learns Pretty Pines’ endangered Yellow Slugs are threatened with extinction by a proposed development, and learns her heart is open to a proposal of its own. These mollusks are famous because they sing and glow and are delicious. A theme of compromise weaves the activism and reunited lovers together as a quasi-judicial hearing inspires critical thinking about decisions that impact species, even slugs.

Realistically, development is at record highs in America, 2023, and mollusks are disappearing at alarming rates. It is important for the public, the voters, to consider the symbiotic relationship of mollusks and humans because mollusks are the ecosystem’s health indicators. When the Yellow Slugs Sing shows how culture changes geography and limits species, and that the art of compromise may be the answer.

Warm-hearted seventh graders at Sandhills Classical Christian School inspired this story when exploring how small town politics can change geography.

The Yellow Slug’s Song

Sold

As

Secret pets

Fed crumbs and insects

When plump, Fricasseed—our flesh

Swimming in sauce served with radish

Chef Escargot—our sworn enemy

Twenty-seven thousand teeth

Too small to eat

People

We munch beetles, in the dark, and our divine SLIME!

Goo, ooh, silvery winding trails—sold to scientists. Hire violinists! It only gets worse-er!

Murder! It’s murder. No safe place—surroundings scraped bare for developments.

We get no respect.

Hiding as secret pets, in places, you’d never bet, squirming under beds, munching bread crumbs

Flossing silverfish from our gums behind moist toilets, under damp cabinets, clinging to life,

On cold pipes

Waiting for activists to save our habitats

As we succumb in condos, apartments, brick ranches, mcmansions and cottages—near you

I will soon publish a teacher's activity, which I used and students loved, a short in-class play, which requires students participate in a quasi-judicial hearing and defend their votes for a grade. Students loved the characters Attorney Sue Ublind, Chef Escargot, and animal rights activist Jill Jumpy, and you will too! 

I will soon offer a full musical stage play based on this story.

Send inquiries to gaumedup@gmail.com

Purchase your copy of When the Yellow Slugs Sing on Amazon and share a review.Amazon

Thank you!

Stephanie