Like a Rock! A Stone Sat Still by Brendan Wenzel

A STONE SAT STILL

AND IT WAS AS IT WAS
WHERE IT WAS IN THE WORLD.

A stone is just a rock, right?

It's always the same, right?

Yes, and no. To a chipmunk trying to chew into a nut in the early dawn, it's dark. To an owl in the moonlight, it is bright.

To a snail, its surface is rough. To a porcupine, it feels so smooth!

The stone can be green with moss or red with flowers.

To a struggling little bug, it's a hill..., but to a moseying moose...

...THE STONE WAS A PEBBLE.

For an otter, it's his kitchen table, and for a a royal lynx....

... THE STONE WAS A THRONE.

And when the waters began to rise around it...

... THE STONE WAS AN ISLAND.

And even as it is swallowed by the waves, but it is still there, in Brendal Wenzel's just published A Stone Sat Still: (Environmental and Nature Picture Book for Kids, Perspective Book for Preschool and Kindergarten, Award Winning Illustrator) (Chronicle Books, 2019). Author Wenzel's landmark stone seems timeless, but as he shows in his marvelously lyrical illustrations, each viewer sees it with a different perspective. Life changes and swirls all around it, as it too changes in its time. Wenzel's soft, muted and layered illustrations suggest the passage of time as viewed by an unseen observer, the reader, and an object which seems timeless, is nevertheless revealed to be in time as well."Profound and poetic." writes The New York Times Book Review.

Brendan Wenzel is also the author of the Caldecott Honor Book, They All Saw A Cat (Cat Books for Kids, Beginning Reading Books, Preschool Prep Books). (Read my review here.)