Meet-the-Author Recording with Leslie Barnard Booth
A Stone Is a Story |
Leslie Barnard Booth introduces and shares some of the backstory for creating A Stone Is a Story.
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Leslie Barnard Booth: Hi, my name is Leslie Barnard Booth. I'm the author of A Stone is a Story, illustrated by Marc Martin.
This book was inspired by a question my daughter asked at dinner one evening. She asked, "Where do rocks come from?" This question started a long conversation around the dinner table, and it got me thinking about all the ways rocks are transported from place to place and broken up by natural forces, by water, glaciers, landslides, animals, and more.
And as I thought about this, I realized that rocks aren't the permanent, immobile objects they seem to be. They only appear this way on a human timescale, but Earth's timescale is so much bigger than that. I also started thinking about how rocks form from lava that cools and solidifies, from sand that gets buried and compressed, even from the shells and skeletons of living things. I began to research the rock cycle, the process through which rocks are continually recycled, transforming from one type into another and another, on and on forever.
Because natural forces and events sculpt Earth's rocks determining their color, shape, size, texture, and mineral content, rocks can tell stories about all they have experienced. Rocks are a powerful record of deep time, one that is all around us. One we can experience in a visceral way when we pick up a rock and hold it in our hands.
My interest in rocks was intellectual. I was curious about the science of rocks, but it was also emotional and that's how I knew it was a story worth telling. Earth's rocks have been here changing and transforming, cycling through the rock cycle for billions of years. They have seen it all. The fact that we can touch something that was once lava or once the bone of a long extinct creature, or once a grain of sand on a distant prehistoric beach, that makes me feel connected to the planet as a whole, to all its raw materials, to all its creatures, past and present, and to the incredible unfathomable immensity of time. That was the emotional spark the brought this book to life, that feeling of connectedness to our home, the ancient, dynamic, ever-changing Earth.
This Meet-the-Author Recording with Leslie Barnard Booth was exclusively created in June 2023 by TeachingBooks with thanks to Simon & Schuster.