A boy tries to carve stone. It goes badly. He tries again. Kobi Yamada wrote this for anyone who has ever been a beginner, had doubts, or attempted something new and watched it fall short of what they pictured, which is to say for everyone.

Elise Hurst illustrates it entirely in charcoal and grey wash, and the restraint is why it lands: nothing is cute, nothing is solved in a rhyme. It won a Christopher Award and a Nautilus Gold. Give it to a kid who is quitting things, a graduate, a teacher, or the adult in your life who needs to hear that the failing part is the learning part.