Been There, Done That! Old Rock (is not boring) by Deb Pilutti

Geologically speaking, Old Rock is not the new kid on the block. To tell the truth, he's kind of a fixture at the foot of the mountains.

To the relative newcomers, Tall Pine, Spotted Beetle, and Hummingbird, he's a boring old codger, er, boulder.

"Being a rock seems awfully boring"... said Tall Pine.

.."in the same spot, day after day," adds Spotted Beetle.

Old Rock demurs, saying his is a great spot to be.

Don't you want to go anywhere?" asked Hummingbird

Ahhh. Old Rock settles back and begins to tell the young ones the tale of the old days, when like a rocket he flew up and away from an exploding volcano. And, oh! all the sights he has seen--dinosaurs hunting and fiery asteroids falling and snowfalls that turned into an ice age of glaciers. He tells them how he was buried in freezing snow and traveled inside the resulting glacier and left as a balancing rock on a mountain as the ice age receded and left him high and dry on a peak--until one day the mountain shook and he tipped and did somersaults all the way down the mountain...

down, down, down,

into a valley...

where he landed just in time for a mammoth to use him for a seat.

And he tells them how he watched a seed grow into Tall Pine where a spotted beetle and a beautiful hummingbird sometimes stop to tell him the tales of all they've seen. And they all agree...

It's a very nice spot.

Deb Pilutti's just published Old Rock (is not boring) (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2020) helps young readers learn to take the long view as they go forth to find their own sights and stories. Pilutti's storytelling gently spoofs the generation gap while she also lays out a little geology lesson for preschoolers and primary readers, set off by her soft abstract illustrations that move through time as the pages, turn, turn, turn. Those old rocks cannot speak, but if we look and listen and learn, they will tell us their timely story.

“A witty, engaging exploration of deep time . . . This picture book rocks!” says Kirkus, in a starred review.

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.)