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A Stone for Sascha
Simplified Chinese edition of A Stone for Sascha
48 pages, Hardcover
First published May 8, 2018
5 people are currently reading
1225 people want to read
About the author
Aaron Becker
13 books415 followersAaron Becker has worked as an artist for such film studios as Lucasfilm, Disney, and Pixar, where he helped define the look and feel of characters, stories, and the movies they become a part of. With Journey, he has created characters and worlds of his very own, using traditional materials and techniques. Aaron Becker lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with his wife, daughter, and cat. This is his first book.
"I’ve made several memorable journeys in my lifetime. I’ve lived in rural Japan and East Africa and backpacked through the South Pacific and Sweden. But to this day, my favorite destination remains my imagination, where you can often find me drawing secret doorways and magic lanterns." — Aaron Becker
"I’ve made several memorable journeys in my lifetime. I’ve lived in rural Japan and East Africa and backpacked through the South Pacific and Sweden. But to this day, my favorite destination remains my imagination, where you can often find me drawing secret doorways and magic lanterns." — Aaron Becker
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 274 reviews
June 1, 2018
Sascha's vacation will be different without her pet dog, who is buried at the outset of this wordless tale, which will reward you through multiple readings. The library where I got this labels it "easy" because it is a picture book, but I pretty strongly disagree. I don't think younger kids would know a fraction of what this book was really about without adult help. But it is lovely, complex, and digitally illustrated by the author of the popular and also wordless Journey trilogy.
This book is in part about grief, and the need to memorialize a life. Sascha eventually chooses a stone she finds for that purpose, but the tale that brings us to that point becomes less about the dog and her relationship to it than connecting her private, personal loss to a cycle of events over centuries. It's about how the stone got to the shoreline all the way across time, evolving from other purposes, including other memorials, though in different forms, beginning in Babylon 600 BCE (and yes, on the endpapers you get a map of the travels of the stone in various forms). So this is cool, right, but not by any means "easy," which is also what I like about it, but I think a lot of people won't like it for younger kids. It feels more like an all-ages picture book, for reading and talking about with kids. I would use it beginning with middle grades, maybe.
The cover has Sascha holding a gold or yellow stone in her hand. That's the key image in that painting, of course, and Becker does a similar highlighting of lighter details on subsequent pages, too. For instance, at the burial, Sascha leaves yellow flowers on the grave; in the background, her brother runs after a butterfly of the same color. There's a white bone in the grave; you can connect this to other white images throughout the book. What is a bone and how does it change into something else? The paintings on each page are deliberately darker so you can find these lighter contrasting images to talk about. On another page the small white images are stars, and then also flowers, so we can make this connection of synchronicity across domains. White stones on the ground connect to the white stone we see in the great mountain in the distance. The world is not static; it moves, and is dynamically interconnected.
At the shore Sascha watches a thrown yellow frisbee and a white volleyball. Maybe she gets the idea of a yellow stone then, who knows? in the next painting she throws a white stone into the water and we see it somehow reflected in the stars. And in other stones on the shoreline, or splashes of white in the waves. Images on the earth and in the water and in the air.
Then things get explicitly cosmic; a yellow comet strikes Earth and its journey begins, ending in Sascha's hands, put as a memorial on her dog's grave. The stone n her hand on the cover comes from a comet!! Could it be possible?
Becker says he got the idea for this book from living in Granada, Spain, where he saw churches that had evolved from mosques that evolved from Roman ruins. He asks, what can we learn from chiseled stone? Where did it come from, what does it all mean? In what sense does it memorialize a period and a place and possibly persons? But Becker admits his book will be interpreted very differently by all readers, and I am sure this is true. The more I read it, the more it says to me, and the more I like what I make of it.
This book is in part about grief, and the need to memorialize a life. Sascha eventually chooses a stone she finds for that purpose, but the tale that brings us to that point becomes less about the dog and her relationship to it than connecting her private, personal loss to a cycle of events over centuries. It's about how the stone got to the shoreline all the way across time, evolving from other purposes, including other memorials, though in different forms, beginning in Babylon 600 BCE (and yes, on the endpapers you get a map of the travels of the stone in various forms). So this is cool, right, but not by any means "easy," which is also what I like about it, but I think a lot of people won't like it for younger kids. It feels more like an all-ages picture book, for reading and talking about with kids. I would use it beginning with middle grades, maybe.
The cover has Sascha holding a gold or yellow stone in her hand. That's the key image in that painting, of course, and Becker does a similar highlighting of lighter details on subsequent pages, too. For instance, at the burial, Sascha leaves yellow flowers on the grave; in the background, her brother runs after a butterfly of the same color. There's a white bone in the grave; you can connect this to other white images throughout the book. What is a bone and how does it change into something else? The paintings on each page are deliberately darker so you can find these lighter contrasting images to talk about. On another page the small white images are stars, and then also flowers, so we can make this connection of synchronicity across domains. White stones on the ground connect to the white stone we see in the great mountain in the distance. The world is not static; it moves, and is dynamically interconnected.
At the shore Sascha watches a thrown yellow frisbee and a white volleyball. Maybe she gets the idea of a yellow stone then, who knows? in the next painting she throws a white stone into the water and we see it somehow reflected in the stars. And in other stones on the shoreline, or splashes of white in the waves. Images on the earth and in the water and in the air.
Then things get explicitly cosmic; a yellow comet strikes Earth and its journey begins, ending in Sascha's hands, put as a memorial on her dog's grave. The stone n her hand on the cover comes from a comet!! Could it be possible?
Becker says he got the idea for this book from living in Granada, Spain, where he saw churches that had evolved from mosques that evolved from Roman ruins. He asks, what can we learn from chiseled stone? Where did it come from, what does it all mean? In what sense does it memorialize a period and a place and possibly persons? But Becker admits his book will be interpreted very differently by all readers, and I am sure this is true. The more I read it, the more it says to me, and the more I like what I make of it.
June 27, 2018
The art blew me away. It was beautiful and mysterious. This is a wordless story about a girl losing a pet. We then see pictures of time as the Earth changes, civilizations come and go, lost and found until this stone out of time gives some solace to Sascha.
I think this is trying to get children, or people to think about time and the fact that many came before us and hopefully many come after us. It is a well done story.
The kids had questions about what was happening. I asked them to tell me the story based on the pictures. They like wordless books as they get to tell the story and they come up with interesting ideas too.
I think this is trying to get children, or people to think about time and the fact that many came before us and hopefully many come after us. It is a well done story.
The kids had questions about what was happening. I asked them to tell me the story based on the pictures. They like wordless books as they get to tell the story and they come up with interesting ideas too.
August 17, 2019
One of the best wordless picture books I have ever seen. The book opens with a young American girl (Possibly around age 10 - Pacific Northwest - Parents appear to be Asian/African Americans) picking flowers to place on the freshly dug grave of her beloved pet dog. (I assume the dog is Sascha, but this is not explicit - wordless picture book...)
After performing the sad duty the family leaves for a campout at the seashore. Other families play nearby with their still-living pets. The young girl wanders down to the shore, idly picking up stones/shells and finds a particularly beautiful sea-polished stone. And then.... The universe opens.
She imagines the stone travelling through space and time (beautiful double-page illustrations for each stage of its journey). The stone arrives as a meteor in the Great Rift Valley and journeys through the ages of dinosaurs, megafauna, early humans and then overland to be part of Kingdoms, palaces, temples, bridges, ornaments across the civilizations of Africa, Asia, and Oceania making its way to this shore and this grief-stricken human child. The girl sees all of this in her mind's eye as she holds the stone - a stone that was once the Buddha's amulet, the keystone of a bridge, a lacquered dragon, a megalith - she takes it home and places it on her beloved dog's grave. The reader knows she feels peace in the face of this little death because now we do as well. Whether you read this as a transformation and rebirth parable or as a thoughtful and intelligent child placing her own experience within the bounds of history it is a wonderful journey.
I did love the non-European cast of the history; this makes the tale more universal.
Flip through the pages a dozen times and you will see something new on each reading.
Highly recommended for classrooms and homes with young children.
After performing the sad duty the family leaves for a campout at the seashore. Other families play nearby with their still-living pets. The young girl wanders down to the shore, idly picking up stones/shells and finds a particularly beautiful sea-polished stone. And then.... The universe opens.
She imagines the stone travelling through space and time (beautiful double-page illustrations for each stage of its journey). The stone arrives as a meteor in the Great Rift Valley and journeys through the ages of dinosaurs, megafauna, early humans and then overland to be part of Kingdoms, palaces, temples, bridges, ornaments across the civilizations of Africa, Asia, and Oceania making its way to this shore and this grief-stricken human child. The girl sees all of this in her mind's eye as she holds the stone - a stone that was once the Buddha's amulet, the keystone of a bridge, a lacquered dragon, a megalith - she takes it home and places it on her beloved dog's grave. The reader knows she feels peace in the face of this little death because now we do as well. Whether you read this as a transformation and rebirth parable or as a thoughtful and intelligent child placing her own experience within the bounds of history it is a wonderful journey.
I did love the non-European cast of the history; this makes the tale more universal.
Flip through the pages a dozen times and you will see something new on each reading.
Highly recommended for classrooms and homes with young children.
May 26, 2018
I just think most kids are going to be like, 'but what does this have to do with the dog?'
July 24, 2018
A Stone for Sascha sees Becker's latest foray into wordless picturebooks since the Journey trilogy. I had concerns at the start that he had found and mastered a tricky format right from the first book and would not be able to maintain it to the same degree as someone like David Wiesnerbut, fortunately, this book is wonderful and, in many respects, a step up. With a more emotive, epic narrative that tells the story of a young girl coming to terms with the loss of the family's pet dog.
Whilst on holiday with her family, she encounters a large, smooth pebble whose own story shares with her an epic journey that reveals how everything is connected - past, present and future. The stone offers a way into many pasts but it is also a doorway into Sasha's own.
I was so happy to see Becker try a new mixed media approach (although I loved his Journey style) where he uses a digital art tablet, applying a pastel-like quality that lends his work an ethereal, filmic quality. This book is a delight which requires multiple re-readings and I would love to hear other readers' interpretations.
Whilst on holiday with her family, she encounters a large, smooth pebble whose own story shares with her an epic journey that reveals how everything is connected - past, present and future. The stone offers a way into many pasts but it is also a doorway into Sasha's own.
I was so happy to see Becker try a new mixed media approach (although I loved his Journey style) where he uses a digital art tablet, applying a pastel-like quality that lends his work an ethereal, filmic quality. This book is a delight which requires multiple re-readings and I would love to hear other readers' interpretations.
October 3, 2023
The summary in GoodReads for this book is so good, I can't really top that. It starts with: 'A girl grieves the loss of her dog in an achingly beautiful wordless epic.'
The illustrations are awe inspiring and worthy of being looked at over and over.
Usually I like to give some quotes from a book but this one doesn't have any words!
So since I don't know how to add sample pictures to my review, (but might add some to my profile pictures), I thought I would give a thought from each page and help you visualize. This is telling you what is in the book, so best if you stop now and just go look at the book. But if you want to continue -
Cover page with picture of girl hugging her dog as they look away
Picking yellow flowers in a big field with the wind blowing some and family waiting in the background
Running to take the flower back
Hole in the ground, daddy holding a bundle to put in the hole, girl holding mama
Putting flowers on a little mound
Driving away with canoe on top of the car, and girl looking back to the mound with the flowers on it while a beautiful shoreline can be seen in the background
Family sets up camp by the shore, other families s play with their dog further away, girl is loading a bucket up with pretty stones
Getting darker, girl throwing stones (maybe couldn't find one good enough for Sascha?)
Golden ball of light plummeting through space
Blasts into the earth
Big Fragments working their way up past the dinosaurs
Big yellow rock spire poking up
Dark hand feeling the stone
4 people to move the big slab up a hill using logs as wheels (with a dog in the picture watching)
Rock standing tall in its own stone hedge, but falling over time, then carted off by someone much later
Big rock carved with symbols and raised to be part of a civilized city
Fighting with sword and shield and a big section of the rock taken away by ship
Rock carved into a block for another civilizations city
Put into a section of a huge Buddha statue
People on horseback with swords raised
Rock carted away by an elephant and then on to a sampan boat
Placed as a linchpin stone section in the a stone bridge with pagoda buildings in the background
Bridge crumbled with stone section fallen
Stone reached for by man with a Siamese cat
Chop chop to make dragon stature carved of stone
Sold to go far away on a sailing Junk
Sold to be home in a Polynesian home
But pirates come - when a dog is asleep
Pirates row out with their yellow stone art prize, while the dog barks and people with lanterns peer on
Sea is rough, pitches back and forth
Pirate reaching, but golden dragon pitched off ship
Sinking
Dragon breaks with currents, tumbles, worn down to a stone
Yellow stone seen in the lapping waves
Seems to glow in the waning light
Dark hand reaches down
Holding the golden stone
Rubbing
Holding it to her head as the stars come out
Treasured stone on a mound while children go to play
Your imagination can paint a picture in your mind of the pages but it won't do it justice. The cities representing the different civilizations are amazing. The beach with the girl is out of the Pacific Northwest is amazing. For a book with no words, it is amazing.
The illustrations are awe inspiring and worthy of being looked at over and over.
Usually I like to give some quotes from a book but this one doesn't have any words!
So since I don't know how to add sample pictures to my review, (but might add some to my profile pictures), I thought I would give a thought from each page and help you visualize. This is telling you what is in the book, so best if you stop now and just go look at the book. But if you want to continue -
Cover page with picture of girl hugging her dog as they look away
Picking yellow flowers in a big field with the wind blowing some and family waiting in the background
Running to take the flower back
Hole in the ground, daddy holding a bundle to put in the hole, girl holding mama
Putting flowers on a little mound
Driving away with canoe on top of the car, and girl looking back to the mound with the flowers on it while a beautiful shoreline can be seen in the background
Family sets up camp by the shore, other families s play with their dog further away, girl is loading a bucket up with pretty stones
Getting darker, girl throwing stones (maybe couldn't find one good enough for Sascha?)
Golden ball of light plummeting through space
Blasts into the earth
Big Fragments working their way up past the dinosaurs
Big yellow rock spire poking up
Dark hand feeling the stone
4 people to move the big slab up a hill using logs as wheels (with a dog in the picture watching)
Rock standing tall in its own stone hedge, but falling over time, then carted off by someone much later
Big rock carved with symbols and raised to be part of a civilized city
Fighting with sword and shield and a big section of the rock taken away by ship
Rock carved into a block for another civilizations city
Put into a section of a huge Buddha statue
People on horseback with swords raised
Rock carted away by an elephant and then on to a sampan boat
Placed as a linchpin stone section in the a stone bridge with pagoda buildings in the background
Bridge crumbled with stone section fallen
Stone reached for by man with a Siamese cat
Chop chop to make dragon stature carved of stone
Sold to go far away on a sailing Junk
Sold to be home in a Polynesian home
But pirates come - when a dog is asleep
Pirates row out with their yellow stone art prize, while the dog barks and people with lanterns peer on
Sea is rough, pitches back and forth
Pirate reaching, but golden dragon pitched off ship
Sinking
Dragon breaks with currents, tumbles, worn down to a stone
Yellow stone seen in the lapping waves
Seems to glow in the waning light
Dark hand reaches down
Holding the golden stone
Rubbing
Holding it to her head as the stars come out
Treasured stone on a mound while children go to play
Your imagination can paint a picture in your mind of the pages but it won't do it justice. The cities representing the different civilizations are amazing. The beach with the girl is out of the Pacific Northwest is amazing. For a book with no words, it is amazing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 4, 2019
Gorgeous picture book telling the story of a girl who is grieving over the death of a pet, and while at the beach, finds a stone. The author then tells us the story of how this stone began its life, literally billions of years ago as the planet and life formed. The stone eventually is dug out of the ground, and is transformed, initially as part of a monument, and through its many uses as the centuries pass, till Sascha finds it at the beach, and finds it gives her some comfort.
The illustrations are beautiful and calming, and convey the huge changes in civilizations and locations. The end result is a peaceful, meditative story.
The illustrations are beautiful and calming, and convey the huge changes in civilizations and locations. The end result is a peaceful, meditative story.
June 4, 2018
Dear Sascha, the family dog, has died, and the family heads off for their vacation without her. In the midst of grief, a young girl spends time by the water. She watches others play, yet remains alone, searching for stones. That beautiful one she discovers takes us on a journey of imagination from ancient times through ocean adventures, time moving on as the stone's history is revealed (imagined?). The connection from one moment in time along the cycle of history is fascinating. Like Becker's other wordless books, this one will be read and examined more than once; the illustrations are gorgeous, with many details. Some of the pictures within the history are cut into parallel, vertical pieces, showing the movement of time. I enjoyed the other-worldly connection very much, am reminded of a quote by John Muir: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."
January 2, 2020
A wordless tale that is literally as old as time. It will make you think about our astonishing history as you admire the amazing artwork.
November 21, 2018
Becker has created an emotive, engaging and beautiful book. ‘A Stone for Sascha’ is so moving and tells the story of a young girl who is processing and dealing with the passing of the family dog when she discovers a unique object whilst on a family holiday.
I already had a tear in my eye when I looked at the first page (but I do really love dogs!). Truly though, this is a testament to the beauty that Becker has created with this book. The style and presentation of this story is so creative, detailed and fascinating.
I really enjoyed taking my time exploring this book and every single page sparked some sort of emotion inside of me. On reflection, this book is so simple yet it has such a deep journey within it. Becker created something which allowed me to fully connect with the character and the way she might be feeling. There is empathy and sympathy woven throughout and the conclusion feels completely right and justified for the girl and her beloved dog.
I would highly recommend taking the time to read this book as I’m sure a lot of people would be able to connect with what Becker has beautifully crafted.
I already had a tear in my eye when I looked at the first page (but I do really love dogs!). Truly though, this is a testament to the beauty that Becker has created with this book. The style and presentation of this story is so creative, detailed and fascinating.
I really enjoyed taking my time exploring this book and every single page sparked some sort of emotion inside of me. On reflection, this book is so simple yet it has such a deep journey within it. Becker created something which allowed me to fully connect with the character and the way she might be feeling. There is empathy and sympathy woven throughout and the conclusion feels completely right and justified for the girl and her beloved dog.
I would highly recommend taking the time to read this book as I’m sure a lot of people would be able to connect with what Becker has beautifully crafted.
June 4, 2018
I love how this beautiful wordless picture book has so much to say with simply gorgeous artwork. Painted digitally on a tablet, this book tells a story of one family's grief for the loss of a beloved pet and one girl's discovery at a beach that allows her to look at the timeless wonder of the world around her. When I was young, I was always fascinated by different rocks that I would find. I would wonder where all in the world any particular rock had been; how far back in time would the rock remember if it could? The story in this book taps into that curiosity and will definitely have readers looking back and forth through it over and over again. I also love that the front and back endpapers show a map of the journey this particular stone took to find it's way into the little girl's hands.
July 11, 2018
Four or five stars? I’m going for a cautious four, but this is a courageous book of huge scope, linking the yellow flowers a girl leaves on her dog’s grave (yes, we start on a downbeat) to a yellow stone linking continents and civilisations and the matter of the universe. Beautiful, smudgy drawings with all sorts of clever detail (the monolith brought on rolled logs to a high place and abandoned is taken down on a cart with wheels) give the reader [sic] much to ponder in a very thoughtful wordless picture book.
May 27, 2018
This requires a few read throughs to truly appreciate the whole story.
November 24, 2023
3.75 ⭐️
August 6, 2018
Wordless book that left me saying WOW! It's neat to remember that the rocks we touch have been moved around the earth for billions of years and that they could have spent some time in the great pyramid or Ancient China, etc... you never know! I have had that revelation about air particles and water, but never about stone!
Part of learning to read is working on narrative skills and learning to recognizing the order of events, "this happened, then this happened, then that happened"... and on and on. This is a great book for talking about the order things happened!
Part of learning to read is working on narrative skills and learning to recognizing the order of events, "this happened, then this happened, then that happened"... and on and on. This is a great book for talking about the order things happened!
September 17, 2018
Two narratives clash in this wordless story about life cycles and impermanence: the death of a family pet and the birth of a stone. The mashup is confusing, though the artwork is lovely, especially the illustrations of the stone glistening in the water, being discovered by the girl, and beginning its new life as a monument.
October 11, 2017
The loss of her dog and the travels of a special gold piece make up this wordless book. By the illustrator of the Journey trilogy.
From advance reader copy.
From advance reader copy.
December 1, 2017
One of those books I’ll have to think about for a while and share with students to fully grasp its impact and what it’s about.
February 16, 2018
What a stunner! Becker does it again with his sumptuous illustrations, both giving me goose bumps and bringing me tears.
May 26, 2018
I struggled to understand the middle of the book. It is a wordless book, and the illustrations are a bit blurred. I liked the beginning and the end of the book, but the middle was very obscure.
January 30, 2019
This wordless picture book is really stunning, beginning with a young girl's grief at the loss of her dog, she goes on holiday with her family to the beach where she finds a golden stone in the water and you take the trip across time (and space) with the stone, all the loss and the travelling that it has gone through to get there to her.
Beautifully illustrated and thought-provoking. Multiple reads required!
Beautifully illustrated and thought-provoking. Multiple reads required!
January 15, 2019
A young girl grieves for her beloved dog, who recently died, in this wordless picture-book from Aaron Becker. On her family's seashore vacation, she finds a very special stone, a stone with an ancient, storied history, and sensing its beauty and unique character, she brings it home as an offering to leave at Sascha's grave...
Becker, who won a Caldecott Honor for his earlier title, Journey , the first of a picture-book trilogy about a girl's adventures in a parallel fairy-tale world, proves with A Stone for Sascha that he is a master of the wordless story. The tale itself is poignant and thought-provoking, tying individual grief to ideas of time, survival, and the reuse of that very significant stone by diverse human civilizations down through the millennia. The artwork itself is gorgeous, beautiful in its own right, and more than enough to carry the story along. I appreciated the fact that Sascha's loving family here is African-American, although that is clearly not the focus of the story, and I found the depiction of the stone itself - it is luminous, as befits an object from the heavens - added a mysterious, almost enchanting element to the story. Recommended to Aaron Becker fans, and to anyone looking for beautiful new wordless picture-books.
Becker, who won a Caldecott Honor for his earlier title, Journey , the first of a picture-book trilogy about a girl's adventures in a parallel fairy-tale world, proves with A Stone for Sascha that he is a master of the wordless story. The tale itself is poignant and thought-provoking, tying individual grief to ideas of time, survival, and the reuse of that very significant stone by diverse human civilizations down through the millennia. The artwork itself is gorgeous, beautiful in its own right, and more than enough to carry the story along. I appreciated the fact that Sascha's loving family here is African-American, although that is clearly not the focus of the story, and I found the depiction of the stone itself - it is luminous, as befits an object from the heavens - added a mysterious, almost enchanting element to the story. Recommended to Aaron Becker fans, and to anyone looking for beautiful new wordless picture-books.
November 1, 2018
A Stone for Sascha. Beautiful illustrations by the incredibly talented Aaron Becker. Previous Caldecott winner for the stunning book, Journey. I don't love this wordless, pet loss picture book, however. It starts out promisingly enough then becomes completely disjointed. I am never thrilled with picture books that you have to explain completely to a child. If a parent is buying A Stone for Sascha to help with pet loss, well this won't do it. Blue by Laura Vaccaro Seeger takes on life and pet loss to perfection. That is a title I am rooting to win an award.
January 1, 2019
In Journey-like fashion, Aaron Becker takes readers on an epic adventure of discovery in this wordless picture book. The personal grief and loss the girl experiences from her pet's death is mirrored in the widespread grief and loss of crumbling civilizations as they give rise to new ones. Strong re-readability potential. The intentional fuzziness of the illustrations suits the daydream quality of the story and adds to the theme of impermanence. Expert flow to the story. Becker is a master of wordless story-telling. This captivating picture book is one of my 2019 Caldecott favorites.
June 21, 2018
(2.5 STARS)
Eh. This started off well. The wordless storytelling was strong and emotive. And then...there was a really long bunny trail that I don't think came back full circle in a meaningful way. It seemed like an unrelated book had been shoehorned into this one? I didn't understand the connection. The illustrations were beautiful as ever, but I finished reading this going "Huh?"
A disappointment, especially after the brilliance of the "Journey" trilogy.
Eh. This started off well. The wordless storytelling was strong and emotive. And then...there was a really long bunny trail that I don't think came back full circle in a meaningful way. It seemed like an unrelated book had been shoehorned into this one? I didn't understand the connection. The illustrations were beautiful as ever, but I finished reading this going "Huh?"
A disappointment, especially after the brilliance of the "Journey" trilogy.
July 23, 2018
Outstanding story told through exceptional artwork detailing a little girls loss, an arrival from beyond the stars, the history of a relic, and remembrance for a beloved friend. There is a lot to discover, and the reader can follow the relics' journey through time and space both in pictures and the endpaper maps. It is large in scope, beautiful in execution and will remain with the reader for a long time. It goes on my shortlist for Best Picture Book of the Year.
May 24, 2018
Beautifully illustrated wordless story about a young girl processing her grief. It seems to be more about how the stone got to where the girl finds it than about her loss, but it's so gorgeous I don't mind.
June 25, 2018
I cried within the first two pages. To be able to pull that kind of emotion out of your readers/views is a gift. I enjoyed the story of how the stone arrived at that place, but the sequence of events dulled the emotion slightly. Maybe it could've packed more of a punch in another order?
September 4, 2018
Either this is going to be a picture book or a message book. I vote message. Although the concept is intriguing, children will miss the point. This could have had a much more child friendly portrait.
May 12, 2018
I'm so pleased I was introduced to this author. A stunning work, with amazing levels of detail.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 274 reviews