In Let’s Investigate with Nate: The Water Cycle by Nate Bell, illustrated by Wes Hargis (HarperCollins, 2017), the science museum doesn’t open until 10, but four lucky children get to come early and explore with the scientist Nate. Told through word bubbles, typed science journal pages, explanatory text, and miscellaneous labels on illustrations, the story contains some good information about the water and the cycle.
The text bubble format gives it a comic-book-like feel, and with the cartoony illustrations and typed “science journal” pages, the book overall has a “Ms. Frizzle” feel to it. Instead of being in school, though, these kids are at the museum early because they want to have a great adventure.
And adventure they have! Each student has an “exit ticket” to answer before they can all leave, so they learn about evaporation, water droplets and precipitation, various bodies of accumulated water, water and air currents, freezing into snowflakes, and underground rivers. The end matter contains a very thorough glossary and a fun water-based science experiment.
