Sylvester and the Magic Pebble

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble

Author and Illustrator: William Steig

Ages Group: 3rd-5th Grade

Published: 1969

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is the story of a young donkey who collects pebbles. One rainy day he found a beautiful red pebble, as he was holding it he wished that the rain would stop. The rain stopped.  He made a couple of more wishes and they came true. He then encountered a lion, he wished that he were a big rock to protect himself from the lion, he was turned into a big rock and the lion walked right by him. He stayed a rock because he couldn’t hold the pebble to wish him back to himself. Sylvester’s parents were very worried because their son didn’t come home. They waited and looked for him and he could not found. They finally gave up thinking something horrible had happened. One summer afternoon, a year later Sylvester’s parents were on a picnic and missing him. The father found a beautiful red pebble and showed it to his wife saying that Sylvester would have loved that pebble. Holding the pebble, Sylvester’s mother wished that he would return to them. HE appeared. His parents were so happy! The parent’s pl aced the pebble in an iron safe until they day that they needed a wish to be honored. Until then, they lived happily with everything that they needed.

The lesson in this book is a good topic to be reinforced in all classrooms, The difference between greed and  wishing for more than you have. We should all be happy with what we have and if we aren’t, then we need to change something within ourselves or something that we are doing to make it happen. We are responsible for our ourselves and our future. We should never let greed get the best of us. We need to learn to be happy with what we have.

The illustrations are harsh and dark, when I look at them, I don’t have a sense of positive feeling or emotion. The black outline around the drawings creates a sketch feel, more of a drawing than a painting or photograph. The art supports the words of the story and follow what the author is trying to tell us, they just don’t appeal to me.

I remember my parents reading this book to me when I was a kid and I didn’t like it. Now that I’m older, I still don’t. I can’t put my finger on it, it has a good lesson that can be used in a classroom about wishing for more than you have and being selfish. I just don’t care for it. I know that this book is a Caldecott Medal winner, but I can’t recommend it.