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This is the story of a simple stone-cutter who becomes greedy for more and more power. Wonderful use of color and imagery. ( )

Chalk was very intriguing book to “read.” I put read in quotes because the book had no actual words. The entire story was all pictures, which I liked because the books illustrations were realistic and very visually pleasing. The book also allowed for my imagination to do the narrating of the story based on what the pictures looked like. For example, it was a rainy day and the children found chalk and then the child drew the sun and it became a sunny day. This allowed me as the reader to infer that the chalk was magical and as they continued to draw, the drawings kept coming to life. I liked the story because of the unique idea of magical chalk. It would be very cool if this chalk existed because anything that was drawn came to life, for example a girl in the story drew butterflies on the pavement and then on the next page the butterflies started flying off of the pavement. This idea of magical chalk, where everything you draw comes to life, also allows the author to get across the message of the story that you should be careful what you wish for. One child drew a dinosaur and then the dinosaur came to life and tried to attack the children and another child had to save the day by drawing a rain cloud that washed away the dinosaur drawing saving the day. ( )

The colors and shapes are fantastic.

A Jewish version of this story, The Stonecutter Who Wanted to be Rich, has a happier end with one more transformation (back to the stonecutter). See also Abraham's Search for God, in which Abraham wants to worship the most powerful being in the world, only to realize that there is none, and several Asian folktales in which an animal king wants his daughter to marry the most powerful being, only to realize that his species is as powerful as any entity. ( )

I was a little surprised at how excellent this book was. I initially read it because I was curious if the story would have been reverent to Japanese culture and I found that the story was not only reverent but also full of wisdom. The story begins with a hard working stonecutter who who cuts stone from a mountain. The stone cutter wants more power and wishes to become a prince. Since the stone cutter was such a hard worker the spirit of the mountain heard him and granted his wish. After he became a prince, the stone cutter realized that the sun was more powerful than a prince, so the mountain spirit made him the sun. Then, he realized that a cloud was more powerful than the sun, so the mountain spirit made him into a cloud. He then thought that the mountain was the most powerful of all things so the mountain spirit made him into the mountain. But when he was the mountain a lowly stonecutter began to chisel him at his feet and he then realized that he was the most powerful person of all, right from the very beginning. I really liked how this story evolved and came back to stonecutting as being the most powerful of all things. The theme of finding power is universal to all of us and sometimes we need to reflect on where we are at and understand how powerful we truly are. ( )