The Gift Stone [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Robyn Eversole (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up

Living with her father in an opal mining town in the Australian outback, a young girl finds a large opal in her underground house and with it makes her wish for a real home come true. Full color.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this sentimental tale, an opal miner's daughter finds a precious gem that grants her wish. "This town is dust and rock and digging machines and sky. Come, I'll show you where we live... underground," narrator Jean begins. In the Australian mining town of Coober Pedy, Jean and her father do indeed live beneath the earth in a dark, rock-lined dwelling, a dimly lit life subtly underscored by the book's brown pages. From this earth-colored backdrop emerge Garns's (Gonna Sing My Head Off!) soft pastel images of life above ground, where Jean sifts through rock piles for shiny bits of opal that the miners have missed. Staring into one such shard, she sees "colors you don't see anywhere else in Coober Pedy. It's like all the bright green and purple and red that we ought to have out here got trapped inside rock." She connects these colors to those outside the window at her grandparents' snug home in nearby Adelaide and wishes they could afford to board her there. Jean's dream is realized after she discovers an opal imbedded in the wall of her aunt's underground house (they are miners, too). While Eversole (Flood Fish) builds some interesting details about this unorthodox lifestyle, she doesn't develop the relationships among the characters. Because readers see little of Jean's interaction with her grandparents, they may well question how she could so easily leave her father behind, even considering her dreary surroundings. Garns's pastels capably portray the narrator but they, too, rarely show Jean interacting with others. In the end, Jean seems as isolated above ground as she did beneath it. Ages 5-8.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3-Coober Pedy, a dusty, Australian opal-mining town, is the setting for this quietly effective story. Jean and her father live in a dwelling built underground where "The walls are rock, streaked rust-orange and white, the doorways are rock, the floors, everything is cool, hard rock." In spite of her love for her dad, the girl longs for a real house with windows, a house surrounded by grass. Her grandparents live in just such a place. Jean describes it as "...like living inside an opal-the biggest, brightest opal there ever was." When Grandma sells an opal that Jean gave her and uses the proceeds to pay for the expenses of having her granddaughter move in, she says, "The opal was a lovely present...but having you here will be an even better present for me." Serious, realistic paintings are well suited to the understated yet evocative text. Each page has a solid brown background, re-creating the confinement and dust of Coober Pedy, but the illustrations depicting outdoor scenes are filled with light. Each painting captures a precise moment in time, making the whole book look like a series of stills. The Australian terminology is minimal and creates no barrier to comprehension. A child's wistful longing unexpectedly fulfilled comes through plain and clear in this lovely offering.
Faith Brautigam, Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (October 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679886842
• ISBN-13: 978-0679886846
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,088,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars aussie magic, September 28, 2000

By 

kathie larsyn (gilbert, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gift Stone (Hardcover)

a young girl with a wish as big as the outback finds the opal which could make everything she hopes for come true....and yet, in tradtional fairy tale manner, she unselfishly gives the "gift stone" to her grandmother, rather than sell it for mere cash....and as all great acts of unselfisheness are rewarded, her dreams become reality! the wonderful use of language by the author made this a delight to read!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reprint this wonderful book, December 15, 2005

By 

CJ "cj1989" (Vaughn, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gift Stone (Hardcover)

This a wonderful story about a girl's life. I read this book to my students before we do a geography lesson on Australia.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Australian story, April 6, 2010

By 

PJ Fred (NY) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Gift Stone (Hardcover)

This is a good book to use when teaching about Australia. It presents another side of life there besides kangaroos and koalas. A young girl is living with her father in Cooby Pedy, a mining town where people actually live underground. Her father works in the opal mines and they live with her aunt and uncle. The girl would really like to live above ground again; she misses seeing trees and flowers and breathing fresh air. A very lucky find helps her realize her dream. I would use this with third grade age children as we study Australia.