To Adam and Roman Our little acorns remember from small things come great
FOREWORD y favorite place to collect insects is a little pond or a large ditch depending on how you look at it behind the baseball field of the small college where I work This is an unlikely place to experience the wonders of nature A supermarket is only about a hundred yards away the Doppler shifts of car wheels hum on the road up the hill and the ground is covered with rusting bits of metal And yet in this pond dragonflies hunt small frogs sing love songs and fish dart among the reeds And a huge snapping turtle hides in the muck I only saw her once a living island that disappeared the minute I tried to get a better look But knowing she was there unseen and powerful was fuel for my imagination I returned to the pond several times throughout the summer to get another look but I never saw her again And then with a fateful kaplunk I discovered Matt and Carol Dembicki s Mr Big Matt and Carol are excellent storytellers who take you deep into their wonderfully realized pond and allow you to get up close to the snapper and gaze into its unblinking eyes The pages themselves are alive with swirling and bubbling panels In Mr Big's pond you will discover strange new faces speaking in familiar voices and struggling with the idea of a power beyond their control Where do they fit in the world Is Mr Big the terror of the pond creatures or their protector The difficult answer is that he is both but not because he has chosen either role Mr Big
just is And in the hands of a talented cartoonist like Matt Dembicki we get to experience all of the wonder and terror and complexity of his world This lovely book will allow us to return to Matt and Carols pond whenever we want and watch the frogs skitter away from circling crows or see the crayfish give wisdom on the pebbly bottom Or perhaps you'll return for the same reason I will to get another glimpse at that big snapper and let his stare spark your imagination When you do remember that it was the el egant imaginations of Matt and Carol Dembicki that made your visit possible Jay Hosler Jay Hosler is the six time Eisner Award nominee and Xeric Award winning creator of Clan Apis and The Sandwalk Adventures He teaches biology at Juniata College in Huntington
