Snail - Toronto, Ontario
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member Metro2
N 43° 36.971 W 079° 22.576
17T E 631018 N 4830525
This sculpture is one of several in the Franklin Children's Garden in Toronto.
Waymark Code: WMET8N
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 07/04/2012
Published By:Groundspeak Regular Member Math Teacher
Views: 7

The Franklin Children's Garden in Toronto (visit link) has several bronze sculptures including this one - all by Ruth Abernethy. The sculptures are based on the Franklin the Turtle children's books by authors Brenda Clark and Paulette Bourgeois.

This piece, located near the treehouse, depicts Snail (that is the character's full name) on a slab of white rock. Snail is looking up and back and appears to have a smile on his face. This work is smaller than the others...perhaps only a foot high and a foot long.

Wikipedia's list of the Franklin characters (visit link) informs us that:

"Snail - Snail moves slowly, and consequently needs help from others often in order to get around, often by riding on Franklin's shell. He likes to do things himself, if he can, and Snail can became annoyed if given assistance when he hadn't asked for help. However, Snail usually appreciates Franklin's help and they are very good friends, with a lot in common. Snail considers Franklin to be his best friend, even though Franklin generally considers his best friend to be Bear. Snail is a very good (if rather slow) climber, once scaling a tall cliff to gather some crystals for the group. In one episode it was stated that it took Snail an hour to cross a short bridge across a stream. Since then, he's been training to crawl faster. Even though snails are in nature hermaphrodites, Snail is a male character, although he is voiced by a female, Kristen Bone."

Franklin's animated television series (visit link) ran from 1997 to 2004:

"The series focuses on the eponymous growing young turtle who, as his television stories and books always begin, "could count by twos and tie his shoes". He goes to school, lives in a small village called Woodland with his friends, and has many adventures playing and learning in the world around him, sometimes with the helping hand of an adult or his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Turtle. Franklin likes swimming, arts and crafts (especially drawing), and loves shoofly pie. He's been known to be afraid of the dark and of thunderstorms. Franklin has a best friend named Bear, as well as a blue blanket and a blue stuffed dog named Sam. Every night he sleeps with his blanket and Sam. During the thunder storms when Franklin is scared Sam and his blue blanket help keep him calm.

Franklin almost always aired with two 11-minute stories (specifically paired together, although usually for no special reason), except on Canada's CBC, which splits the stories apart and shows one at a time. The Franklin DVD and video releases include individual stories grouped together as part of a theme, rather than complete episodes. Unlike many animated children's programs, Franklin has no interstitial segments or end-tags featuring the characters. The scenes shown in the cartoon opening introduction were changed after the show's first season. Many of these scenes featured Otter, a character who left the series early in the first season and was only seen once more in later seasons."

The date of the works is unknown.
Character Type: Literature

Character originator: Brenda Clark and Paulette Bourgeois

Internet Link: [Web Link]

Address or Location:
Franklin Childrens Garden Centre Island Toronto, Ontario Canada


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Metro2 visited Snail  -  Toronto, Ontario 06/08/2012 Metro2 visited it