What to Do With a Stick

Yolen’s rhyming meter is flawless and begs for the story to be read aloud, which is the best way to share a book with a child. Like a favorite song, you may even find yourself reciting certain lines to one another. But the highlights of this book are Paolo Domeniconi’s realistically magical artwork and the extent of the illustrations he created to accompany the text. The looks on the face of the red-haired boy, as he uses the sticks for distinctly different purposes, are recognizable to anyone with children in their lives. Fighting a dragon, anchoring a boat, fishing—each image imparts the magic of youth that Yolen’s words are meant to portray. What to Do with a Stick is a book your children will enjoy looking through even when they can’t read. This will only make it more enjoyable when they start putting the rhyming words together themselves. —New York Journal of Books