Water

by Doe Boyle, Ana Miminoshvili (Illustrator)

Overview

2023 Green Earth Book Award Children's Nonfiction Recommended Reading

All life is connected to water. It's our most precious resource.

Water. It is crucial for life on Earth, and it is everywhere. It is also the only substance on Earth that naturally has three forms: it can be a liquid, a solid, or a gas. Why is water so important for life?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807586693
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	10/27/2022
Series:	Imagine This!
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Doe Boyle is the author of Heartbeat, Blink!, and Hear the Wind Blow, all published by Albert Whitman & Company. An editor and teaching artist, she often shares her love of language in arts-integrated school residencies, and she has written two travel guides about her home state of Connecticut, where the music and movement of Long Island Sound were among the first sensations she experienced. Doe is a founder of the Tassy Walden Award for New Voices in Children's Literature.

Ana Miminoshvili is an illustrator and designer, based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She completed her bachelor's degree in visual arts at TSAA. While still a student, she started taking her first steps in the creative industry. In 2018, after a few years of working at an agency, Ana left to become a full-time freelance illustrator.

Editorial Reviews

"A quick but refreshing pour of facts and insights."—Kirkus Reviews

"A visually beautiful introduction to water in our present world…"—School Library Journal

2023 Green Earth Book Award Long List for Nonfiction Book
2023 Green Earth Book Award Children's Nonfiction Recommended Reading

From the Publisher

09/01/2022

Gr 3–5—Vibrant, lush, illustrations immediately engage readers in this sophisticated introduction to water and the water cycle. The pages are structured as single-, double- and triple-panel, full-bleed spreads that provide an expansive feel to the topic, appropriate given the importance of water to our planet. Although lacking chapters, headings, or an index, the information flows well. The book opens with water in each of its natural states (liquid, solid, gas). Large water drops with text appear on many of the pages along with larger blocks of information. Next, the work looks at global harvesting and preservation in places where fresh water is in short supply, such as India, Kenya, Peru, and Nevada. It then features water's relationship with plants through photosynthesis and transpiration. The last pages are devoted to water and humans. Human hydration goes beyond sweating to include temperature regulation, flexibility, detoxing, brain function, and mood. The book ends with preservation and access awareness. The final page offers ideas on how readers can help water reach everyone, one drop at a time. An author's note, resources list of excellent titles, and glossary extend the text. One caveat is that the information is much more advanced and dense than the picture book format implies. Younger readers will need vocabulary and concept support while the absence of formal headings and chapters will deter older readers doing research. VERDICT A visually beautiful introduction to water in our present world, this title might best be suited as a read-aloud introduction geared to inspiring discussion and brainstorming.—Elisabeth LeBris

School Library Journal

2022-07-27
An introduction to the most common and, for life at least, valuable substance on the planet.

Expanding on the twin themes that water is necessary and also “always in motion,” Boyle highlights water’s distinctive qualities—it’s the only substance on Earth that exists naturally in three different states, for example—and traces the water cycle. The author also explains how the stuff came up from the hot core in our planet’s early days (theories that at least some might have come from comets go unmentioned) as hot vapor, forming oceans made of fresh water, and that the oceans became salty as “raindrops wore away salts in the rocks on land, carrying the salts into Earth’s rivers and streams—and then onward to the oceans.” The role of fresh groundwater, or its scarcity, in agriculture and our lives in general is briefly explored, with examples of water-gathering strategies in northern Kenya, India’s Kutch region, and other dry areas. Following a reminder of water’s effects on our health and even well-being, Boyle closes by urging younger audiences to adopt simple conservation practices. “Every person makes a difference. Every drop makes a difference.” Miminoshvili uses appropriately flowing lines to depict water on the move in various forms and settings, adding a generic but racially and culturally diverse cast of human figures carrying water or splashing through it. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A quick but refreshing pour of facts and insights. (author’s note, resource list, glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews