A Stone Sat Still by Brendan Wenzel
You wouldn’t think of a stone as something with a story, as most people ignore rocks.
But even an ordinary stone, as Brendan Wenzel skillfully shows with both words and illustrations, has many stories.
In fact, as many stories as there are creatures walking or crawling on it, resting or hiding near it, touching or smelling it.
The stone is the wild where bugs and creatures roam and a home for a family of mice. A kitchen for a family of otters and a throne for a panther. A marker when geese come back home, a map for an ant, a maze made by a snail. A danger where foxes hide and a haven for a rabbit. A story for a crab and a stage for a cricket.
This picture book is a stone’s story of transformation as life and nature happen around and on it. It starts with the stone next to which a little tree sprouts, and grows, larger and taller, giving shade, changing colors, losing its leaves, and being chewed by a beaver that makes himself a home. The waters grow, and the grasses shield the stone. The stone becomes an island and then a wave when water covers it, and then the stone is a memory. Underneath the water, the stone remains always, with life happening again around and on it in a different cycle.
Bonus: This picture book can be used to teach children so many things. It left me bewildered as I discovered details in the illustrations months after I purchased it.
You can use it to teach:
- opposites: the stone is dark and bright, loud and quiet, rough and smooth
- colors and seasons: green, red, purple, and blue; spring, summer, fall, winter
- proportions: small as a pebble for a moose, big as a hill for a bug
- changes in nature: how a tree sprouts, grows, gets cut, and remains a stump; how water can change the environment, providing insight into climate change or floods
- the amazing interconnectedness of animals and their environment
- perception and the passage of time: how you can see it as a blink and as an age.
This picture book is a poetic story of life and nature, its ongoing transformation, and how it’s perceived and I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we do, in our home.