Water Land: Land and Water Forms Around the World

by Christy Hale

Overview

A lake turns into an island.
A cozy bay into a secluded cape.
A gulf with sea turtles transforms into a peninsula surrounded by pirate ships.

This unique information book for the very young switches between bodies of water and corresponding land masses with the simple turn of a page. Readers will delight as the story of Water Land unfolds and will see just how connected the earth and the water really are.

This book has Common Core connections.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250152442
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	05/22/2018
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	362,701
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Christy Hale has illustrated numerous award-winning books for children, including two that she also wrote: The East-West House: Noguchi’s Childhood in Japan and Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building. An art director, designer, and educator, Hale teaches writing for picture books at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She lives with her family in Palo Alto, California.

Editorial Reviews

*"There are fun details to pore over in each textured picture, which draw on Hale’s particular skill with nature scenes, and the pages are sturdy, well designed, and quite charming."—Booklist, starred review

From the Publisher

04/01/2018
Gr 3–5—In this spare text, 12 words (lake, island, strait, isthmus, and so on) bring different landforms and water bodies around the world to light for early learners. Cleverly constructed thick, die-cut pages add interest to the concise narrative. There's a visual surprise with each spread. The cutouts change the scene with every page turn. For example, an image showing a ball-tossing duo at a bay turns into a sunbather bracing for an incoming wave at the cape on the next spread. A young girl looking through a telescope at birds at the gulf turns into a girl on a peninsula looking at a pirate ship. Pages trade off from blue to yellow, representing water and land. People of varying skin tones are shown. An appended foldout sheet offers a map of the world which further explains locations hinted at in the text. VERDICT A lovely, imaginative look at water masses and landforms for a young audience.—Anne Chapman Callaghan, Racine Public Library, WI

School Library Journal

2018-03-04
As the subtitle indicates, Hale contrasts five water forms with five landforms in her minimalist informational picture book.On the verso of the first double-page spread, a child revels in a windy swirl of falling maple leaves against a butter-yellow background, while on the recto another lounges in a boat on a small, clear blue body of water. The word "lake" is printed in boldface type above that body of water, the color precisely matching that of the water. Turning the page, readers see the lake is actually a die cut: the lake-shaped hole from the previous page is now an island-shaped hole, filled in with the yellow background from the previous spread. The word "island" sits underneath, its color matching the sands of the landform it represents. Hale's art is playful and appealing but never overwhelming or distracting as she uses the die cuts and precise color to establish unmistakable visual connections. A diversity of skin tones and implied genders are included in each spread, although there is no diversity of body shape nor visual hints at disability. Logically, the concepts depend on forms where land and water meet: lake and island, bay and cape, strait and isthmus, system of lakes and archipelago, gulf and peninsula. An end foldout provides a map, form definitions, and example locations across the globe.The die cuts dividing water from land are vulnerable to little hands, but their value more than delivers. (Informational picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews

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