A Stone Sat Still: The (World) Is Lovely, Dark, and Deep...

Chronicle Books 2019

Look.

Please.

Just look at this cover. 

Really look at it.

A STONE SAT STILL is written and illustrated by award-winning Brendan Wenzel. It invites readers to do just the same, to sit still, to REALLY look at this single, very specific stone. 

To look intently, from various perspectives and points of view, over time, with all of our senses. 

In the opening and closing endpapers we encounter the stone, recognizing hints of the passage of time and circumstances surrounding the stone. With that passing time, the story of our world has dramatically changed, but the stone remains. 

I wrote out the full text, all 233 words of it. I did that because each phrase within that short text, each perspective, unfolds its own powerful truth through Wenzel's earthy bend of media: cut paper, colored pencils, oil pastels, and computer. The rhymed but free-form text incorporates rhythm so effectively as to feel, to me, like breathing. It's the kind of breathing I do when meditating or doing yoga. Each phrase, each panel, each perspective elicits engagement, draws me into the moment portrayed. 

Is this:

 a quiet book, a reflective book, a bedtime book, a nature book, a calming book? 

Yes, to all of those.

The magic of Wenzel's creation, in my opinion, is that this book is also:

an environmental book,

a climate change book,

an endangered species book, 

a science book,

a habitat book, 

a food chain book,

a call-to-action book.

You get the idea. 

In a recent post I shared a book and message about starting our future citizens young in developing an appreciation of the natural world in which they live and expanding their awareness of their relationship with that world (HERE). 

This, too, is a must-have book for sharing, at any age. It begs readers to step outside, to transfer the experiences modeled in the book about that stone, the one  that sat still on the pages but changed at every turn. 

That exercise requires attention to all of our senses, to fine details, to surrounding conditions and creatures, to imagination, and to predictions about how nature will change that object over time- days, seasons, decade, and centuries.

Then it invites us to ask the hard questions. 

Among those- is it nature that is changing or are we changing nature? 

And, if so, how? Why?

Public and individual activism about climate change in relation to our personal choices is, in my opinion, essential. Taking time to examine what climate change actually means, right outside our doors, both natural and human-made, is even more essential.

Alladin Books

When I had my own classrooms, (again, with students of any age), I used Byrd Baylor's and Peter Parnell's  EVERYBODY NEEDS A ROCK to activate science and literature reflections, including using it as mentor text for writing in both categories.

This latest release reflects the importance of the values Baylor presented in her classic picture books about nature, and the two titles pair well. I encourage getting both books to share and compare, as well as to initiate field activities, writing, and further reading in fiction and nonfiction, (yes, at every age). 

Particularly with established readers and writers, I urge you to write out the full text of each book, to share it with students and consider how and why such spare and simple text, such ordinary word choice, such straightforward statements can achieve such power. Consider line breaks, repetition, pacing, rhythm, internal and near-rhyme. Both books are brilliant  examples of writing craft without using big words, even including run-on sentences. Struggling readers and writers can access and evaluate these books as readily and with as much (or more) success as stellar students. Often it is those speedy students who struggle most with the reflective nature of books like these.

Empowering books can empower lives- and maybe even change our world for the better.