Geology ROCKS!

Special Rocks

	Leslie McGuirk’s photo-illustrated If Rocks Could Sing (Tricycle Press, 2011) is a “Discovered Alphabet” in rocks, all found on the beach near the author’s home. B, for example, is for Bird, and features both a rock shaped like the letter B and a bird-shaped rock in a nest. What a great idea for a family rock-hunting project. For ages 3 and up.
	Take a Nature Walk with Alphabet Rocks. In this fun activity, kids paint the letters of the alphabet on rocks, then take a hike and distribute their rocks in appropriate locations outdoors. (F next to a flower; G in the grass?)
	Byrd Baylor’s wonderful picture book Everybody Needs a Rock (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2011) tells readers just how to choose their own very special rock. For ages 4 and up.
	Peggy Christian’s If You Find a Rock (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008) – illustrated with lovely color-tinted photographs by Barbara Hirsch Lember – is a celebration of all the possibilities to be found in rocks: skipping stones, chalk rocks for drawing on sidewalks, mossy rocks for resting on beside a trail, wishing rocks, and more. For ages 5-9.
	In Lucille Clifton’s The Lucky Stone (Yearling, 1986), Tee loves her great-grandmother’s stories of the family lucky stone (“a warm stone, shiny black as nighttime”) that has brought good luck to its owners for over a hundred years – first helping Mandy, a runaway slave, find her way to freedom. For ages 6-9.
	Fairy stones or fairy crosses – actually crystals of staurolite – are found in the Smoky Mountains of Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. Said to bring good luck to their owners. (Charles Lindbergh – a.k.a. Lucky Lindy – carried one.) Read about them here – or go hunt for your own at Virginia’s Fairy Stone Park.
	Rocks! They make great souvenirs. Check out some of the collectibles in the Smithsonian’s Souvenirs exhibit, among them pieces of Plymouth Rock, the Bastille, and the Berlin Wall, and a stone from Joan of Arc’s dungeon.

Rock Collecting

	By Roma Gans, Let’s Go Rock Collecting (HarperCollins, 1997) in the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series covers rock formation, types of rocks, uses of rocks (Roman roads, Egyptian pyramids), and rock collecting. (“The oldest things you can collect are rocks.”) For ages 4-8.
	Carol Otis Hurst’s Rocks in His Head (Greenwillow Books, 2001) is the picture-book story of her father, an avid rock collector, who – after losing his job during the Great Depression – used his passion for rocks to win a job as Curator of Mineralogy at a science museum. It’s a great story of following a dream, even though people around him always mocked him, saying that he had rocks in his head. (To which he replied, “Maybe I have.”) For ages 4-8.
	In Gail Langer Karwoski’s Julie the Rockhound (Sylvan Dell Publishing, 2007), Julie finds a piece of quartz – and immediately becomes fascinated with rocks and minerals. Included are helpful instructions for hopeful rock collectors. For ages 5-8.
	Dan R. Lynch’s Rock Collecting for Kids (Adventure Publications, 2018) is an introduction to geology for ages 6-12, with basic background information, how-tos, and a photo-illustrated identification guide.

Geological Time, or the Long, Long, Long History of Rocks

	In Judi Kurjian’s In My Own Backyard (Charlesbridge Publishing, 2000), a child looks out a bedroom window and wonders who lived here before – and suddenly is plunged into a trip backwards through time, sequentially viewing colonists, native Americans, glaciers and woolly mammoths, dinosaurs and swamps. Included is a timeline. For ages 3-8.
	Virginia Lee Burton’s updated Life Story (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009) – originally published in 1962 – is the story of life on Earth in four acts, from the creation of the solar system to the present day. A great resource for all ages.
	The star of Meredith Hooper’s The Pebble in My Pocket (Viking Juvenile Books, 1996) is a pebble that originated in a volcano 480 million years ago. The book follows the pebble through geologic time, step by step, to the present day, when it’s found on the ground by a young girl. Included is a timeline. For ages 8-11.
	Bruce Hiscock’s picture book The Big Rock (Aladdin, 1999) is the multi-million-year story of a granite boulder in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. Read it and you’ll never take rocks for granted again. We read it on a picnic on a big rock in the woods and our kids were awed. (“This rock saw dinosaurs!”) For ages 5-10.
	From the University of California Museum of Paleontology, learn all about the Geologic Time Scale.
	Camels Often Sit Down Carefully…Check out this useful mnemonic for memorizing the geological periods in descending order of age.