PEBBLE

The subtitle immediately lets readers young and old know the lay of the land: This is a story that wants to direct, even control, emotional response. It begins with a personified pebble on a shoreline, “small and round and nearly smooth.” The pebble feels the wind, rain and sun and longs to be a part of something bigger. It’s too small to be part of a stone wall and too big to be part of a sandcastle. A boy comes by the shore with his family and is “filled with a sense of wonder” (surely no small boy ever thought those words to himself) at the sun and sea. He wants to find a keepsake—not a shell or a feather or a bit of sea glass. What he chooses is the pebble. The boy is delighted to have this “pocket friend” and the pebble has found what it sought. The pictures are quite attractive, with lovely textures for sky and shore, and many limpid shades of blue and stone. But the overly sentimental story will need the right audience. (Picture book. 5-8)