By Dianna Hutts Aston, Susan L. Roth
Dial Books for Young Readers, $17.99, 30 pages
ISBN 9780803732452

Marguerite, Simon Rodia’s neighbor for thirty-four years, didn’t call him Simon. To her, he was always Uncle Sam.  Many in the Watts, California neighborhood thought Simon Rodia, an Italian American immigrant, foolish while they watched him collecting bits of tiles, broken teapots, plates, and bottles from the garbage. The little girl, Marguerite, however, would earn a penny for candy for collecting sacks with him along the railroad tracks. Marguerite grows up to bring her own children to watch this man create his masterpiece.

One initial chip of tile gave Uncle Sam his inspiration.  He saw in it the something big he wanted to do.  From this bit of garbage, he would go on, over the course of thirty-four years, to build the Watts Towers, which were to become a national landmark.

“’I’m gonna do something big,’ I heard him say.”

This book’s beautiful collages give children a real sense of the project step- by- step along its way to completion.  An activity to create one’s own Watts Tower offers interaction with the story that gives children not only the history of the Watts Towers, but, more importantly, the sharing of the finding of inspiration, and of the perseverance to follow one’s dream, despite the initial opinions of others.

Reviewed by Angie Mangino