However, even younger children can enjoy and grasp some information about rocks. Focusing on one rock stop at a time or sharing an activity at the end of the book, or looking a the pictures of the rocks with detailed surfaces and searching for them on a rock walk will interest the younger crowd. After all, if you have ever taken a walk with a child, you know by the time you reach home, YOUR pockets are filled with rocks, because your young friend is carrying the sticks.
She takes the reader on a rock walk with Buddy and his mother who visit a nature center and follow the Blue Diamond Rock Trail. Along the way, they meet Roxie, a Rock Ridge Ranger, who shares lots of interesting facts about rocks. He tells Buddy how, "rock, clay, mud and clay...are pressed and hardened" until this sediment becomes, "over time," (and Buddy finishes for Ranger Roxie"s) "rock!" Buddy is also surprised to hear the ranger use words like, "change, melt, and float" to describe some rocks.
After Rock Stop 5, Buddy and MaMa head home. But before Wallace leaves the reader, she shares a simple rock gift children can make, ways to display rocks, and a way to catalogue, or sort, the different and similar rocks.
To lighten up the facts, (sorry, I could not help myself) Buddy tells some simple jokes. Buddy asks, "What kind of rock did the pebble like to eat for dessert?" Wallace does not shy away from the three or four syllable rock jargon, but Buddy repeats each work as Wallace writes it phonetically. I learned that a person who likes to learn about rocks is a "pet-trol-o-gist."
Taking a phrase from Wallace, you might say, Rocks, Rocks, Rocks, rocks!
Go on a Rock Hunt. Use Rocks! Rocks! Rocks! to help you identify them.
