A Stone Sat Still by Brendan Wenzel
A Stone Sat Still by Brendan Wenzel
Review Copy from Chronicle Books
With A Stone Sat Still, Wenzel continues his exploration of the variety of experience and perspective he began in They All Saw a Cat. Wenzel begins with the refrain,
A stone sat still
with the water, grass, and dirt
and it was as it was
where it was in the world.
A snail begins a journey at the bottom of this stone, which is a mountain. The stone is many things to the many creatures that encounter it: dark and light, quiet and loud, rough and smooth, green, red, purple and blue, a pebble and a hill. Wenzel's mixed-media, collage like illustrations capture the enormity and smallness of the stone and the world it is part of. Repeating the refrain, readers mark the snail's progress over the stone, moving the book forward, but also somehow keeping it in the same place, echoing the change and sameness that is the stone.
Simple and brilliant, A Stone Sat Still reads like an instant classic. This is a book that takes you out of your world and places you in it and, best of all, connects you with the natural world and its cycles.
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