A Rock is Lively

A Rock is Lively is an informational text written by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long in 2012.  This story is part of a series of books that teach readers about different scientific elements. Other books in this series include An Egg is Quiet, A Seed is Sleepy, and A Butterfly is Patient.  One key aspect of this story is the authors' craft of using headers to begin various segments of the story. Each header introduces the topics that the page will discuss and the authors use various adjectives to set the readers up for descriptive aspects in regards to rocks. The headers within this story include: a rock is lively, a rock is mixed up, a rock is galactic, a rock is old, a rock is huge and tiny, a rock is helpful, a rock is suprising, a rock is inventive, a rock is creative, a rock is recycled, a finally a rock is lively. This text serves as a full circle text as the story both opens and closes with the description of a rock being lively.  These headers within the story allow readers to pick an chose elements of the text that interest them in order to learn more about rocks. Seeing as how the text in informational, it does not flow in the sense of a story being told. Each descriptive header is unique with it's own information which truly encourages readers to chose the elements of rocks that most interest them.  Aside from the information in the text, the illustrations are also full of knowledge as the pictures are very descriptive, colorful, and accurate in regards to the sizes and pictures of rocks themselves.  Science texts are often extremely hard to find in order to incorporate into the curriculum, and this story would be a very useful book to include in any classroom that is exploring the uniqueness associated with rocks. Take a look at some the illustrations below and be sure to check this book out if you are interested in rocks!