Pip and the Boy Who Stopped Building

Caleb is ten. He spent four months on a model rocket, it fell sideways at the invention fair, and two kids laughed. So he quit. Then Pip turns up, small enough for a jacket pocket and old enough to have slept in cathedral walls. This book is for any child who has packed away something they loved after one bad day, and for the grown ups reading it with them.

What if the thing you gave up was the very thing you were made for? Ten-year-old Caleb used to love building things. For four months, he poured his heart into a model rocket, fixing seventeen problems, filling notebooks with diagrams, believing in something he'd made with his own hands. Then at the school invention fair, it fizzled and fell sideways, and two kids laughed. Caleb packed away his tools, shoved his hands in his pockets, and decided that building things was not for him anymore. Then Pip showed up. Small enough to fit in a jacket pocket, old enough to have slept in cathedral walls and the roots of ancient oaks, Pip is an ancient mystical creature with one extraordinary gift: the ability to ask exactly the right question at exactly the right moment. Pip doesn't fix things. Pip asks about them. And in a single walk through Caleb's neighborhood, Pip's quiet questions begin to unlock something in everyone they meet, a neighbor who never finished his birdhouse, a girl hiding her architectural blueprints in a library notebook, a school janitor with a brilliant invention and no one to tell, and a father who covered up his greatest project seven years ago and told himself he was being practical. But the most important question of all is the one Pip is saving for Caleb. Pip and the Boy Who Stopped Building is a warm, funny, and deeply moving chapter book about creativity, courage, and the quiet bravery of trying again. It is for every child who has ever made something, been laughed at, and wondered if it was worth going back. (It is. It always is.) Perfect for readers ages 6 to 12. A read-aloud treasure for families and classrooms.

For every kid who quit something they loved after one bad day.