""Banks and Hallensleben make beautiful books together."" -- American Bookseller

A boy picks up a rock that he finds on the beach. He holds it in his hand, and admires it. He doesn't know that the rock has been on a great journey through time in making its way to him: that it was spewed forth from a fiery volcano, then altered by eons of wind and rain, frozen during the ice age, and finally carried out into the ocean, where it lay on the floor of the sea before being thrust onto the shore at his feet. But he does know that it is a gift from the sea.

Kate Banks and Georg Hallensleben combine their talents to tell a story that is as wonderfully simple as it is profound.

*"" In this disarming reflection on permanence, the creators of And If the Moon Could Talk find the sublime in an ordinary stone . . . By expressing wonder at a seemingly mundane object, Banks and Hallensleben challenge readers to see the universe in a grain of sand."" -Starred, Publishers Weekly