Water Rolls, Water Rises / El agua rueda, el agua sube

Review
By Booklist Online

This handsome, bilingual picture book transports children around the world to view water in many forms. In the first illustration, kids play at the beach along a rocky sea coast. In the next, people and cats walk through fog along a canal. A night scene depicts an encampment at a desert oasis. Each picture is paired with an evocative verse—e.g., “Slow into rivers, / water slithers and snakes / through silent canyons at twilight and dawn”—and its Spanish translation. Both the images and the evocative, poetic text and verse support the book’s unifying theme of water as a shared resource that takes many forms. With a strong sense of line, form, and color, So creates a varied series of intriguing pictures, each with a strong sense of place. For readers wondering where in the world each scene is located, an appended guide offers a miniature of each illustration and identifies each place. A beautiful addition to classroom units on water and a useful gateway to global awareness.