What Can You Do with a Rock?

From award-winning author Pat Zietlow Miller, a timeless story about creativity, exploration, and friendship
What can you do with a rock?
You can skip them.
You can sort them.
Best of all, you can share them.
Rocks are simple, but the things you can do with them are endless. Rocks can build, sparkle, and tell a story. They can be memories. They can even be a little bit magic. This ode to curiosity and creative play from New York Times bestselling author Pat Zietlow Miller and acclaimed illustrator Katie Kath is bound to inspire.\nFrom School Library Journal\nPreS-Gr 2-What a rocking picture book this is! With a bit of geology, a bit of psychology, and a lot of fun, the author and illustrator give us a small active person of indeterminate gender and neutral pronouns in the text (and longish flippy blue hair in the illustrations), who delightedly progresses from kicking rocks, to picking them up, to skipping, dropping, sorting, studying, creating with them-and finally, using them as a stepping stone to friendship. Harking back to such gems as A Hole Is to Dig, this book in its final pages provides a quick intro to geology and some further reading, with both fiction and nonfiction suggestions. In the animated, realistic, blue-washed watercolors, perspectives vary and figures are anchored by thick, fuzzy lines. Landscapes and interiors are uncluttered, but detailed enough to convince. Many compositions featuring a path with an entry- or exit-point help to reinforce the reader-oriented viewpoint. The clear, simple, second-person text offers encouragement and elides gender, but eventually the main character and brown-skinned friend with hair in two meatball-shaped buns are wearing what most children will perceive as girls' bathing suits. VERDICT A winning blend of science, playfulness, and the warmth of personal connections, with lively, engaging illustrations, this book deserves rock-star status-Patricia D. Lothrop, formerly at St. George's Sch., Newport, RIα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.