A Gift from the Sea

Illustrated by Georg Hallensleblen Published April 2001

A boy picks up a rock that he finds on the beach. He holds it in his hand, and admires it. He doesn’t know that the rock has been on a great journey through time in making its way to him: that it was spewed forth from a fiery volcano, then altered by eons of wind and rain, frozen during the ice age, and finally carried out into the ocean, where it lay on the floor of the sea before being thrust onto the shore at his feet. But he does know that it is a gift from the sea.

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Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In this disarming reflection on permanence, the creators of And If the Moon Could Talk find the sublime in an ordinary stone…By expressing wonder at a seemingly mundane object, Banks and Hallensleben challenge readers to see the universe in a grain of sand.

School Library Journal

This is a book to inspire wonder at the vast history of geology and the beauty of the sea and its gifts. —Ellen Heath, Orchard School, Ridgewood, NJ