THE MISSING PIECE MEETS THE BIG O

In Silverstein's The Missing Piece (1976), a circle with a dot for an eye set out to find the wedge-shaped piece whose absence, in the pictures, made a mouth-like gap in the circle. Here, in a similar spirit, the piece itself sits passively, "waiting for someone to come along and take it somewhere." Otherwise this is the same story, with the same message: where the earlier circle finally found a piece but rejected it because its presence prevented the circle from singing, this piece—after many unfit candidates and one trial match which it outgrows—finally meets the independent Big O. The O, complete in itself, isn't missing a piece, but does inspire this piece to roll along independently too. Soon the effort rounds off the wedge and it catches up with the big O to roll with it side by side. Like its companion piece, this has a more contemporary message than Silverstein's The Giving Tree; but even interpreted broadly it doesn't speak specifically to children's needs, and the innuendos make it more appropriate for coy adults.