Allison's Book Bag

Me and Momma and Big John is a beautiful fictional tribute to one of the first women in the United States to learn the traditional craft of stonecutting. With lyrical text, author Mara Rockcliff narrates a heart-warming story with positive values such as the importance of sharing moments as a family and taking pride in one’s craft. Illustrator William Low complements Rockcliff’s words with luminous digital spreads of warm family scenes and of the majestic Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City.

The massive cathedral has been a work in progress,  since 1882; to this day, its towers remain incomplete. The first time Rockcliff visited one of the chapels at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine over thirty year ago, it had a fish tank. Being Jewish, she hadn’t seen the inside of many churches. According to an interview at Watch Connect Read, Rockcliff knew the moment she saw those tropical fish swimming around that the Cathedral of St. John the Divine was her kind of church. And so it is fitting that Rockcliff has now written a book about it.

What I love most about Me and Momma and Big John is how the main character slowly comes to understand his mother’s role in creating this special place. She cuts one stone, a process which she describes as “that stone is just like my babies’ faces. My hands feel it when it isn’t there. I smelled it in my sleep.” When her son asks how come it’s so much work to create just one stone, she tells him that building a cathedral is an art. Later, when his mother takes him on a tour, her son thinks about the hands that worked on every stone. He feels proud of his mother and her work and of the cathedral.

Cathedral of St. John the Divine — a Stone SCULPTOR working on an angel. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I enjoyed Rockcliff’s descriptions of the stonecutting craft. Momma would return home daily with “her bouncy beaded earrings … dull as dirt.” When home with her children, she would describe the cathedral to them and lay out her tools. Her son likens her stones to paintings and his momma to an artist.

With Me and Momma and Big John, Rockcliff has successfully educated and entertained me. Having read it, I wanted to know more about Momma’s trade. In the About section at the end of the book, we are told that it was inspired by Carol Hazel, an apprentice stonecutter who became involved with efforts to complete the cathedral when construction resumed in 1982. Hazel herself explains her feelings about her work on the cathedral: “Stonecutting is in my blood. The cathedral is a beautiful thing and beautiful people helped build it.”

The About section provides other interesting details, such as the fact that construction on the cathedral might not have resumed after World II except for the idea by the dean to help boost a dying economy by hiring young New Yorkers to revive a dying trade. Yet I would like to know more. For instance, I’d love to know about any of the other women who worked on the cathedral, and whether any female craftsmen were involved in the project prior to the suspension of the construction in the 1940s. As such, Rockcliff has inspired me to search out other books, which is what quality fiction should do.

My rating? Bag it: Carry it with you. Make it a top priority to read.

How would you rate this book?

Related Posts

• Teasers for Me and Momma and Big John
• MOSAIC Round-Up 2013

Other Reviews

• Kirkus
• Publishers Weekly

Momma comes home from work, tired and sore from a long day at her job. She’s a stonecutter now, helping to build the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City.

The above description comes from the inside flap of Me and Mamma and Big John, a picture book designated in 2013 as a Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book. It is written by Mara Rockcliff and illustrated by William Low.

AUTHOR

Mara Rockliff has been a professional writer for children and adults since 1991. She studied in Scotland and graduated from Brown University in Rhode Island. For six years, from 1991-1997, she worked as a language arts editor with Editor, Language Arts, Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Now she is a freelance writer,  who lives in eastern Pennsylvania with her family.

ILLUSTRATOR

Born in the Bronx, in the back seat of a taxicab, William Low is a native New Yorker. According to his website bio, his approach to picture making developed when he was an art student. As a student in the High School of Art and Design, he studied classical portraiture using oils. Later, at the Parson’s School of Design, he learned how to do everything else: think artistically and abstractly, draw, and compose. Over the last twenty-two years, Low has established himself as a commercial artist and painter, winning numerous awards and illustrating several children’s books. Currently, he is also the principal in Cobalt Illustration Studios.

CULTURAL SETTING

English: Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City – Shot from the northwest corner facing southeast (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Me and Momma and Big John was inspired by one of the first women in the United States to learn the traditional craft of stonecutting. According to the job site Sokanu, stone cutters process or shape crude and rough pieces of rocks into desirable shape, sizes and patterns for the purpose of building and creating structures. The job site My Majors expands upon this description to list these duties of a stone cutter:

• Carve rough designs freehand or by chipping along marks on stone, using mallets and chisels or pneumatic tools.
• Drill holes and cut or carve moldings and grooves in stone, according to diagrams and patterns.
• Verify depths and dimensions of cuts or carvings to ensure adherence to specifications, blueprints, or models, using measuring instruments.
• Cut, shape, and finish rough blocks of building or monumental stone, according to diagrams or patterns.
• Lay out designs or dimensions from sketches or blueprints on stone surfaces, by freehand or by transferring them from tracing paper, using scribes or chalk and measuring instruments.

Big John refers to the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. The New York Carver describes it as measuring in at 121,000 square feet or the size of two football fields (with room left over for the football). And, for that reason, the Cathedral of St. John is described as being one of the ‘World’s Largest Cathedrals’. The below video shows its Christmas Eve service, complete with a candlelight procession.

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