CHILDRENS FICTION Pedro lives in the village of Marbleville, where his father works at the marble mines. In the mines, men carefully dig rocks. Some of these rocks, when cracked open, contain beautiful glass marbles. One day, Pedros grandparents decide to make a visit. It just so happens that their arrival coincides with a rather magical marble happening. Pedros father comes home from work with rocks from the mines. These rocks reveal special marbles unlike any Pedro has seen before. There are many stories about the marbles of Marbleville, as well as the mine. For instance, whole families have gone missing there, and Pedros newfound marbles might hold some clues. He shows his grandmother the special marbles, and she sees them as a sign. Many years ago, the mother of the present mine owner entrusted her with letters. Pedros family finally reads the letters, and they unveil an amazing secret that takes Pedro into the past. He soon discovers his new marbles really are magicand they might be his only ticket back home!

The annual visit by Pedros grandparents coincides with his discovery of special marbles found in rocks brought home by his father from the marble mine where he works. The village of Marbleville and the mine there hold some very strange mysteries, where in the past whole families just disappeared without trace. When Pedro shows his grandmother the marbles he has been finding, she decides it is time to open some envelopes entrusted to her many years previous by the mother of the present mine owner. What she finds out leads the family on an adventure into the past.

A Washington Post Best Fiction Book of 2022 From the son of acclaimed author James Agee, a haunting novel depicting an American boy’s childhood in Mexico, ensconced in a world comprised of communist European exiles, local union activists, street children, and avant-garde artists like Frida Kahlo. Joel Agee’s hallucinatory first novel begins in a house with a large garden in an unnamed Mexican town in the late 1940s, where six-and-a-half-year-old Peter reads, dreams, and plays with his friends. He is a nascent explorer, artist, philosopher, mystic, and scientist. His world is still new, not yet papered over with received knowledge. And the actual world around him is a unique one in history: a community of leftist emigrés who have found refuge in Mexico from the Nazi and fascist regimes of Europe, rubbing shoulders with Mexican labor activists and leftists such as Frida Kahlo. But the emigrés long for home — including Peter’s step-father, who wants to return to his native Germany. Going back to Europe may not be safe for any of them yet, however, which gives rise to anguished arguments among Peter’s parents’s and their tight group of friends. And slowly, Peter begins to comprehend that his world may be turned upside down – that he might be forced to take leave of everyone he knows: his best friend, Arón; his father’s friend Sándor, who talks about revolution and performs magic tricks; and Zita, the family’s live-in-maid, who has taught him the consoling mysteries of prayer . . . Steeped in the magic and myths of childhood — yet haunted by a harsh adult world bedeviled by instability and political turmoil — Joel Agee’s The Stone World is an unforgettable portrait of a family that will inevitably invite comparison with another classic family story, that of his father James Agee’s A Death in the Family.

The stories in the book are grouped for expected developmental levels for children between the ages of two and seven, reflecting the growing world of the child from self-centric to an understanding of facts far removed from the child's immediate world.