A Rock Is Lively

Award-winning author/illustrator team Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long, whose previous picture-books have explored a number of different themes in the world of natural history - An Egg Is Quiet, A Seed Is Sleepy, A Butterfly Is Patient - return in this fourth marvelous collaboration, this time examining a diverse range of rocks. The format here is similar to that in the previous books, with a simple macro-narrative - "A rock is lively... a rock is mixed up" - and a more detailed micro-narrative, giving more information about each statement being made. The formation of rocks, their status as objects containing a mix of minerals, the age and galactic activity of rocks, the uses to which rocks have been put by animals and human beings show more alike - all this and more is covered here.

Like its predecessors, A Rock Is Lively pairs an informative and engaging narrative with breathtakingly beautiful artwork. I had never really devoted much time to considering rocks, even as a child, but Aston's text makes me reconsider my indifference, highlighting so many fascinating aspects of their formation and use. By the same token, Long's artwork, created using watercolor, highlights the amazing diversity and beauty of rocks, making me reconsider these objects' aesthetic worth. Although the 'before and after pages here - in each of these Aston/Long productions, there is a page at the beginning of the book showing something (eggs, seeds), and a page at the end showing what it becomes (birds, plants) - don't change visually, labels are added on the 'after' page, allowing young readers and listeners to guess at the identities of the rocks being presented, and then check their surmises. Recommended to all young children who lock rocks, or natural history in general, as well as to anyone who is an admirer of Sylvia Long's amazing artwork. show less

A Rock is...Lively?? This book provides a fresh perspective on rocks - and it has some of the most beautiful endpapers ever. (Pair it with a trip to a natural history museum, if you can!) Each double page spread features one line of poetic primary text in a script-style font ("A rock is lively...bubbling like a pot of soup deep beneath the earth's crust..."), and a paragraph or more of secondary text which is more factual but still somewhat poetic ("Comets are balls of rock and ice - sometimes called 'dirty snowballs' - that are heated by the sun and soar through space, leaving glowing ribbons of dust behind them"). Highly recommended: younger children can enjoy the primary text and the gorgeous illustrations, and older ones can absorb show more the more detailed facts as well. show less

If you want Astonishingly Amazingly Beautiful in a children's book, look no further than the writing/illustrating team of Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long. A Rock is Lively is Aston and Long's fourth joint effort following the success of An Egg is Quiet, A Seed is Sleepy, and A Butterfly is Patient.

I knew this would be a lovely book, but I'd almost despaired of obtaining a copy in time to evaluate it for the Cybils when my librarian friend surprised me with the book last week.

I hope you'll forgive me for loving this book best of the series as my husband is a longtime rockhound and gem cutter. I've seen a lot of beautiful rocks and a lot of beautiful rock books, but I must say that I've never seen more beautiful rocks in a more show more beautiful rock book. And not only is it beautiful, but it explains rocks better than any other rock book for children that I've read.

Fabulous. It will not disappoint. show less

REVIEW:
This informative book explains various subtopics about the topic of rocks. For example, topics include what rocks are made of, where they come from (including explaining the rock cycle), and how they are helpful to animals/humans. Each page is a new subtopic and is introduced with a simple statement as a title. For example, titles include "A rock is helpful", "A rock is galactic", and "A rock is recycled". Various informative text structures in this book include labels, pictures, captions, bolded font for important vocabulary, and headings. Throughout the book, there are many types of illustrated rocks and they are all labeled. These labeled illustrations aren't pertinent to the book, but they are fun tidbits of information! The show more text is poetic-like, and has an easy flow when read out loud, making it more than just an informational book. It's also interesting how each title describes a rock using an adjective that is usually used to describe humans/animals. In addition, this book has amazing illustrations! They are colorful, detailed, and interesting to look at.

MEDIA: watercolor

GENRE: Children's informational

USES:
(1) This book could be used to show the importance of certain informational text features, such as labels, pictures, captions, bolded font for important vocabulary, and headings. Students could explore why these features help the reader comprehend what is being read.
(2) Students could write a story about a rock using adjectives that help rocks come alive (such as lively, surprising, inventive etc...). For example, students could create a rock cycle story featuring a specific kind of rock, but describing the rock using person qualities. show less

Dianna Hutts Aston uses fluid and poetic writing to make studying rocks exciting and interesting for young readers. The water-color illustrations are striking and, dare I say it....lively. As each type of rock is mentioned, it is preceded by an introduction written in cursive that reads “a rock is....” followed by an adjective to describe it-- “surprising” is one example. In this section the author discusses what rocks look like on the inside. The book gives information about rocks melted deep within the earth and ventures far into information about some rocks in space.

Readers also learn how rocks are valuable to both people and animals, which is great because rocks are typically overlooked by kids, except for me. As a child, I show more was a rock collector. It drove my mom crazy. :)

While visually appealing, the cursive writing may be difficult for the book’s targeted audience to read, as I’ve notice about 98% of my 6th grade students have never learned how to write in cursive.

A list of further reading would have really benefitted kids whose interest was peaked about geology. There is also no list of works cited which doesn’t tell us the extent of the author’s knowledge and from where she pulled the information. It would also have been great to show some actual photos of the rocks alongside the beautiful illustrations.

Still, the book is a great tool to introducing an easily boring subject to possibly reluctant readers. show less

I really enjoyed this book for a few reasons. First, I love the pictures. The rock illustrations are extremely realistic and beautiful. They enhance the story very much. Information about rocks could be a little dry if you don't find a way to enhance the information. Secondly, I enjoyed the way that the book was written and organized. The author used a few different fonts and many different organizational strategies. Having the information organized in such interesting ways on each page helps to keep the reader engaged. The big idea of this book is to introduce types of rocks and some of their uses.

This is a wonderfully written educational book on rocks. This would be wonderful to have in a library when students are learning about rocks! There is so much information on the different types of rocks and how they are used by animals and humans. There is a main word for each page such as "old" and then it explains how the rocks relate to this word. For this word, different types of rocks are shown with how old they are and where they were found. The illustrations for this book were such an added touch that really makes the book engaging for the reader. I really enjoyed reading this book and wish I would have had it when learning about geology in elementary school and even in college!