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Rating: 
Summary: Charming Story With an Unlikely Hero
Review: "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" is a charming children's story about a donkey family, the Duncans, and their son Sylvester who has an insatiable urge to collect pebbles of unusual shape and color. Life is just fine for the Duncans until Sylvester finds a magic pebble that grants wishes. Sylvester gets very excited after finding out by trial and error in a very childlike way that his latest pebble grants wishes. He rushes home to tell his parents and bumps into a lion on the way home. Being a young donkey, he has no idea how to wish himself out of danger with the lion so he wishes to... One of the story's biggest surprises is that Sylvester's big wish to save himself from the lion is very to predict. I certainly, as an adult, would never have guessed what Sylvester wished for to save himself from the lion. I picked up a very inexpensive soft cover edition of this book as a gift for the little boy I home-school. He has severe seizures that doctors haven't figured out how to control yet with medication. As a result he can't attend school and must be home-schooled until they find medications that can control his seizures. In addition, he is a Ukrainian immigrant who has been here less than a year so he is an LEP (Limited English Proficiency) student. I relate this information because it does relate to my book review since he was the child I purchased the book. Being that my student relies upon me, his home-school teacher, for his entire link to schooling, education, and English training, I needed a book that: 1.Was well illustrated to keep a child's interest who didn't understand many of the words.
2.Had a touching story that made both of us thoughtful (and could cheer him up as well).
3.Had appropriate language for a child still in the developing stages of learning English.
4.Could somehow be relevant to the life of a child stuck at home with illness. "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" was everything I asked for. The Duncans are a loving donkey family in the story and their love for another comes through in both the writing and illustrations. Both my student and I enjoyed the story and we're still reading it until my student will be able to read it on his own (He's getting closer too!). I don't want to give away the story, but Sylvester wishes himself into a rock to escape the lion. Unfortunately as a rock, Sylvester couldn't make more wishes with the rock to return to being a donkey boy. The rest of the story relates how Sylvester felt as a rock, how his parents missed him and searched for him, and how Sylvester eventually returns to being a donkey boy again. My student related Sylvester being a rock to being stuck at home with seizures. The language, while at an intermediate to advanced level of English fluency, was appropriate with a little scaffolding (a fancy education term that means preparing the student with vocabulary and new concepts). Both my student and I loved "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble." I highly recommend "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" to parents and children. It's a charming story that's innovative and distinctive from others. Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan
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