Sylvester and the Magic Pebbleby William Steig
This is a tale of Sylvester the donkey as he comes upon a magic pebble. In a moment of fright, Sylvester asks the magic pebble to turn him into a rock. Sylvester is then unable to turn himself back into his old self and remains a stone. The rest of the story goes about how the community tries to find where Sylvester went. In the course of this, his family goes to the police for help. This part of the story has placed this book under fire because Steig portrays the policemen as pigs. This ultimately caused this Caldecott Medal winning book to be banned in parts of the United States. This seems outrageous that this good book would be banned for such a minuscule and unimportant detail. All of these characters are portrayed as animals and the police were chosen as pigs. No text within this story suggests that meaning was put into the animal character choice. All in all, I enjoyed reading this cheerful book and intend on having it be part of my future elementary classroom.
Intended Age 4-8
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