My calendar on the wall is telling me it’s time to ramp up the planning for our third annual Multicultural Children’s Book Day! As you may all know, this yearly event is designed to not only spotlight all of the amazing multicultrual children’s literature, but also the authors of these books. My desk and Evernote is filled with wonderful and diverse books that I plan to highlight in honor of this upcoming January 27th event, and The Thunder Egg by is one.
The Thunder Egg by Tim J. Myers is an endearing tale that inspires the imagination while tugging at the heart strings.
Stand-By-Herself lived with her grandmother amongst her people in the tall grasses and endless skies of the Plains.
She was very shy an liked to go off alone. Often times the other children would make fun of her.
Stand-By Herself was good at finding thing. She could find sage-grouse chicks in the tall waving grass. She found autumn by watching the ducks flying South. One day she found a odd gray stone. She was sure she had found a thunder egg.
The thunderbird is the creator’s giant eagle who brought rain, thunder and lightening. Carefully taking the thunder egg back to her family’s tipi, she cradle wrapped the thunder egg and sang lovely songs to it.
That summer a horrible drought fell on her people. For days and days the rains did not fall. The holy-man said they must offer sacrifices to make the world new again.
Stands-By Herself knew what she had to do. I don’t want to spoil the story but I promise you that there is a powerful and rich conclusion.
The Thunder Egg is a beautiful teaching story which shares the importance of putting others before ones self.
Beautifully illustrated in watercolors, Winfield Coleman’s art is an inspiration and invites us into the unfolding of this captivating story.
Something To Do
Geodes
The egg of the thunder bird in The Thunder Egg was actually inspired by geodes. Geodes are the tootsie pop of geology. Plain on the outside, actually very dull on the outside, and have beautiful crystals on the inside. There really is a type of geode called a thunder egg. Read on to find out what this is.
The word geode comes from the greek language and means “shape of the earth”.
They come in a variety of sizes spanning in diameter from 1 inch to 4 inches or larger.
How Geodes are formed
Geodes are created in many types of areas. They can be formed in the bubbles of volcanic rocks. They also form in hollow spaces such as rabbit, mouse, gopher, and mole holes. Tree roots also make a great home for geode formation.
Here’s how it works:
Over time, minerals collect in the holes and hollow areas and harden into a ball. This becomes the outside of the geode. What’s happening inside is really fantastic. As the outside layer of the geode hardens, the inside layer continues to from crystals becoming the center of the geode. Every type of mineral can be found inside a geode. The more popular types are quartz and amethyst.
I hope you’re not in a hurry because the insides of geodes are not filled in very quickly. It takes hundreds of millions of years for the space inside a geode to be filled with crystals.
So what’s a Thunder Egg ?
When a geode is completely filled with crystals it’s called a nodule. A geode/nodule which is filled with agate is called a thunder egg.
This next part is beyond fun. We had so much fun doing this. Would you like to get your own geodes and break them?
If you’re near the state of Arkansas you can find lots of rocks and crystals shops to buy geodes in. If however you’re like us and don’t live near or in Arkansas you can buy geodes online. Here’s a great collection to purchase from. We were really happy with the insides of our geodes.
There are a variety of ways to crack open a geode. There are instructions inside the box of geodes we purchased and then there is this wonderful blog post from Gator Girl Rocks that helped immensely.
A Look Inside
Here’s what are geode looks like on the inside. It was such a surprise !!!
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