I have spent the better part of the last week obsessing about a shell.  A partial shell, to be precise, with shoes and a face.  I know how this sounds, but I've been seeing him waddling around the bathroom sink when I brush my teeth in the morning and lounging in the kitchen when I'm cooking dinner after work.  His name is Marcel, and before you report me to the authorities, let me explain: Marcel is the star of a 2010 viral video created by Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp as well as the subject of a stunning picture book ($18.99) and iPad app ($6.99), Marcel the Shell with Shoes On: Things About Me, released this month.  In addition to being miniature and funny and a special kind of wise, Marcel is also a marvelous tour guide, showing us around the corners of his world (he sleeps in a "breadroom" in between two slices of white, and the attraction he finds too thrilling to ride at the amusement park is the salad spinner because "I'm already thrilled enough").

I adore Marcel—and the squeaky sweet voice Slate loans him in the video and in the audio of the app—but it's the way you're given a chance to experience his pleasures alongside him that makes the app so special.  He takes comfort from his breadroom and finds friendship in Alan, the piece of lint he ties to a string; best of all, his life is a constant adventure.  Whether it's his regular visits to the "aquarium" (fishbowl) or yearly trek up the sandal, he's an expert at discovering joy.  So yes, maybe imagining a partial shell with shoes on scampering around my apartment is a little strange, but as Marcel would say, "compared to what?"

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