Water is Water by Miranda Paul, illustrated by Jason Chin (Roaring Brook Press, 2015). Although the subtitle is “A Book about the Water Cycle,” Water is Water provides a readable, poetic reminder about the various stages in which water accumulates on the Earth. The various forms water takes range from water to steam (technically, it should be called water vapor here, but let’s not be picky) to clouds to fog to puddles to ice to mud and to apples (not including a few steps along the way). The text rhymes, or nearly rhymes, and is always rhythmic:
Patter.
Splatter.
What is that sound?
Rain is rain unless ….on the ground.
Slosh in galoshes.
plash to your knees!
Puddles are puddles unless …they freeze!
I love how readable Water is Water is, and yet we still learn much about how water changes: heating it up, falling to the ground, cooling in the air, freezing, and finally being used in tree roots. The book does not cover all the ways water moves, of course, but provides such readable and accessible text about water’s changing nature for even very young readers.
