I wrote I Am A Rock at the request of Grace Maccarone, my editor at Scholastic for many years. She asked me to write a series of Level 1 science readers for children in grades K-1. Having been editor of Let's Find Out, Scholastic's kindergarten magazine for 20 years, I was happy to do this. Scholastic picked Judith Moffatt for the illustrations. She is a wonderful paper/collage artist. Kids and teachers love her work in these books because her pictures make science feel like fun. I enjoyed writing the books simply, accurately, and as poetically as possible. As I wrote, I read the text aloud to myself very slowly because that's how readers in grades K-1 read. Reading slowly helped me write poetically. Other books in the series are: I Am a Leaf, I Am a Star, I Am an Apple, I Am Fire, I Am Planet Earth, I Am Snow, and I Am Water.