Pius Pelosi, the rat and hero of The Room of Wonders, collects many delightful things he discovers in the course of his daily routine: shiny keys, leaves, feathers, driftwood, and “shiny bits of glass shaped and smoothed by the ocean.”
Pius’s friends love to come by to admire his delightful collection, on display in his Room of Wonders. They love the beauty of some objects, the whimsical shapes, and even the stories Pius can tell about so many of these found objects. If there is no story to tell, sometimes the item can inspire Pius to make up a clever tale.
Among the countless treasures in Pius’ collection, however, there is a small, grey, entirely unremarkable pebble. Of all the amazing wonders in Pius’s storeroom, this grey pebble is an outstanding misfit. Its only feature, its only claim to importance, is that it was the very first item Pius ever collected. He cannot explain to anyone the importance of this one pebble or why it holds a place among so many treasures. It has no interesting story about discovery or location, nor can Pius invent a story on its behalf.
Eventually, outshone by the magnificence of everything else in the Room of Wonders, the pebble loses its glamour even in Pius’s eyes, and he tosses it into the river. But soon thereafter, every other treasure in the room of wonders becomes equally disinteresting. Item after item is given away or discarded, until the room is empty… and so is Pius’s life.
Pius spends his days in a now-wonderless room, and on his daily routine he no longer spots the treasures that might once have caught his eye. Something is missing, not just around Pius, but within him as well… until the day a small, unremarkable pebble catches his eye. It reminds him of his old one, and he begins once again to wonder: where did it come from? How did it get here? And this pebble comes home with Pius.
In Pius, Ruzzier has created a sweetly familiar character in which we can see both parent and child in shared delight at the world around them. Through the eyes of children, every thing appears new and marvelous, and all things are free from the dullness of familiarity. Throughout our lives, we fill our own Rooms of Wonder without realizing it. In fact, I have my very own rock collection, scattered throughout my house on windowsills, in bowls, and clustered under my computer monitor. And every so-often, as I dust them off, I think to myself, “Why on earth am I keeping this?”
The Room of Wonders holds the answer. Ruzzier’s soft color drawings illuminate and charmingly express this story that quietly blossoms inside each reader, as we come to realize that the wonder was really never in the room, but within Pius’s soul.
The Room of Wonders
Author: Sergio Ruzzier
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First edition, ©2006
ISBN: 0374363439
Tangled Strings 