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PICTURE BOOKS
Miller, Pat Zietlow

What Can You Do with a Rock?

40 pp. | Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky | October, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-1-7282-1763-5 $17.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by Katie Kath. Some junior rock collectors are budding geologists, interested in the origins and classification of rocks. Some have that completist gene and are hot on the quest for the perfect geode. Others just want to arrange their rocks into families, or learn to skip them, or use them for crafts. Author and illustrator of this joyful book give equal respect to every kind of rockhound, following a jaunty blue-haired girl with a sidelong grin who collects, sorts, paints, makes mosaics, pitches, and contemplates. Some of the similes are a bit clichéd ("People are like rocks. Some sparkle right away, while others seem ordinary at first, but have treasure deep inside"), but the energetic illustrations, with their mini-subplots (see the startled fish and grumpy raccoon), keep it all grounded and child centered. Gorgeous colorful endpapers introduce us to such delicious rock words as feldspar, banded gneiss, and actinolite. Up-to-date suggestions for further reading include both fiction and nonfiction. This offering joins such titles as Reid's Picture a Tree (rev. 5/13) and Tamaki's They Say Blue (rev. 7/18) in the category of appreciative musings about the natural world.
Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2021

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