Something Nice to See - Hardcover

In the small town of Watts lived a boy named Barry.
His mom said he was getting too big to carry.
So she taught him to multiply, to eighty-one,
He learned letters too, he thought it was fun.

Barry's father left home some years before,
His mother said they would see him no more.
There was more work without her man,
So Barry said, "I'll help if I can."

Barry's mom brought him up in the neighborhood
And taught him to be the good boy he should.
She taught him to read and taught him to write
And taught him too, it was bad to fight.

Across Barry's street in a triangle space
Stood a house and yard, not commonplace
. Dancing there was a funny little fellow
Whose back was as stiff as a very old cello.

Now the man Barry saw was five feet tall,
Which isn't tall for a man at all.
He was a shy guy with the slightest frame,
So quiet, few knew Sam was his name
.

He wore torn pants and a very old shirt,
And both were covered with lots of dirt.
Sam came from Italy, a far-off spot
, His English, he said, was not so hot.

Sam lived next door to a railroad track;
He could see the trains from his yard in back.
When the trains were gone he collected things
Like bottles and plates and even bedsprings.

Some of the junk wound up in Sam's floor,
Dishes and bottles on the wall with the door
. Pieces of cups on towers meteoric:
The whole darn thing was phantasmagoric.

"...lovely and charming ...right-minded, and so good for the children... " -- Marvin Bileck, Caldecott Award Winner, Rain Makes Applesauce

This delightful story of tolerance is set during the creation of the aw-inspiring Watts Towers. Some 30 years in the making, the Watts Towers are this country's most spectacular and enduring folk-art monuments. Illustrator Peter Hamlin has captured their unique whimsy with magical full-color drawings. This is the story of Barry, a lad who arouses resentment in his classmates because he can do something they cannot. He can read! Fatherless, he finds inspiration from the gentle folk wisdom of an Italian immigrant, Sam Rodia, creator of the astonishing Watts Towers. -- From the Publisher