Rocks in His Head - Carol Otis Hurst

Illustrated by James Stevenson
Greenwillow/Harcourt
2001
Rating: 4
Endpapers: Creamy pink

"Some people collect stamps. Some people collect coins or dolls or bottle caps. When he was a boy, my father collected rocks. When he wasn't doing chores at home or learning at school, he'd walk along stone walls and around old quarries, looking for rocks. People said he had rocks n his pockets and rocks in his head. He didn't mind. It was usually true."

This wonderfully told memoir includes a little history about the Depression, a little information about collecting, and the story of a man whose passion turns into a living - the true story of how a man with no college education - but a huge love of learning - can become a curator at a museum. Super.