Necks Out for Adventure!

Review By JESSICA ALMY

If you’re ready for a quirky adventure story told from the perspective of a clam, then Necks Out for Adventure! by Timothy Basil Ering is the book for you.

“For as long as anyone could remember, the wiggleskins would not leave the mud. While the currents flowed back and forth over their heads, they all lived by a simple system. Necks out to eat and necks in to hide.”

So begins the story — true, we’re told — of Edwin Wiggleskin, a clam who dared to ask a very big question: What would happen if the wiggleskins left the mud and flowed with the current? When his people are snatched by a clammer, Edwin doesn’t just ask the question, but he puts his neck out for adventure and gives it a go. Daring to go where no clam has gone before, Edwin ventures onto shore and to the clammer’s shack, where he narrowly avoids a soup pot and ends up saving his mom, dad, and all the clams by convincing them to leave their shells and venture out on their own.

Vegan and vegetarian families will appreciate that this story illustrates what it must feel like to be someone else’s food. While we can’t know for sure whether clams are actually sentient, like this story portrays, we do know that it’s better to err on the side of caution.

Ages 3-7.