THESE ARE MY ROCKS

A tour of collections great and small.

Readers are instructed to flick a switch on the opening page, literally shedding light on an unseen narrator’s collection of neatly displayed “small things,” including a puzzle piece, a snail, a paper clip, and a button. Woollvin’s fetchingly stencil-like, glowing graphics imbue most objects, even inanimate ones, with lively eyes, as in her Little Red (2016). Next up is a collection of “BIG things”—an elephant, a whale, and a car—spilling off the page. Quick, help the narrator “squash them back in!” Whew! The narrator shows off a collection of “pointy things” and then one of “prickly things” (“Expert collectors know the difference”), followed by a “most exciting” collection of rocks. Every page invites reader participation: Kids are asked to blow away cobwebs, grab an errant spider, sniff the pungent offerings in the “stinky collection,” and sort a variety of especially delicate objects (“Gently does it!”). Uh-oh: You dropped the narrator’s teapot! But don’t worry; it soon finds a new home in the collection of broken things. And hey, there’s that spider! Readers successfully corral it, and the narrator adds it to a “many-legs” collection labeled “DO NOT LET US OUT.” The last page encourages youngsters to become collectors themselves, but they won’t need much convincing; Woollvin’s quirky, conversational text and artwork will have already persuaded them to follow suit.

The joys of collecting, artfully conveyed.