This book has a fittingly cave-like feel: We open the cover and immediately see the earth — eons ago — settling, burping up rocks, and seeping water into a cave, which drips so that little mineral piles grow. What happens within the cave is quirky, irresistible, educational, and enlightening: Quite a combo!
Stalactite and Stalagmite start as nubs emerging from those mineral piles and speaking to each other with phrases like:
"You are dripping on my head."
"Does it feel good?"
"Yes, it does."
"I think we will get along just fine, then."
In the background we see volcanoes erupting as the Proterozoic Eon starts the accumulation of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere. As various creatures make their way into the cave, subsequent eras are introduced through their life forms: a trilobite, an ichthyostega, a triceratops, a giant ground sloth, a bat, and eventually humans. The droll humor continues: The ichthyostega cries "WHOOOPS" and flips upside-down upon entering the cave, and the growing -tite and -mite nubs apologize, "Sorry, we are very slippery. And wet." That's okay with the ichthyostega, who shares these two qualities.
Stalactite and Stalagmite is one of those books — like Samantha Harvey's Orbital and Robert Macfarlane's Underland — that reorients our perspective and helps us feel where we humans fall in the microcosm-to-macrocosm continuum. In one of our favorite passages, Stalactite asks Stalagmite, "If you had arms, what would you draw?" Stalagmite responds:
"I would draw a picture of the whole infinite universe throughout all time. My drawing would be so big and so true that it would be scary. But scary in a good way. Everyone who saw it would feel so small, and they would find comfort finally knowing their place in its endless giganticness."
Written at a reading level appropriate for four-to-eight year olds, this book is for anyone seeking to find their place in life's vastness and for anyone who appreciates a bit of goofiness alongside their enlightenment. That applies even to the bio, where Drew Beckmeyer describes himself as "a Homo Sapien of the late Cenozoic era ... as well as a teacher of small Homo Sapiens" and quips that you can visit him at DrewBeckmeyer.com "while the internet still exists."
