ROCKS! ROCKS! ROCKS!

When Buddy, a budding petrologist, shows his mom a cairn he stacked, she suggests a trip to Rock Ridge Nature Center. There the pair follows the blue diamonds along the rock trail. Readers will learn along with Buddy about bedrock, erosion and the ways in which people use rocks to build and make things. Roxie the park ranger does an excellent job of explaining the three types of rocks and how they are formed, using vocabulary in context. The only piece missing in this otherwise complete overview is some kind of key to identifying the rock types—Buddy sorts rocks according to their physical characteristics, but none are classified. The information is broken up into bite-sized chunks and separated by Buddy’s corny jokes—just right for young learners’ attention spans. Three pages of rock activities, sayings and place names cap off the text. Wallace’s trademark cut-paper artwork is in evidence, this time with the addition of photographs, which lend the rocks real texture. Spot-on for young enthusiasts. (Informational picture book. 4-8)