Over the weekend, I read Nancy Bo Flood’s new book, Water Runs Through This Book (Fulcrum Publishing, 2015). What a cool genre mash-up about one of my favorite topics–water!
This book is packed full of facts, photos, ponderings, poetry, quotations, questions, and wonder. It’s perfect for upper elementary and middle school students, but you could also share a lot of excerpts from it with your primary students.
Nancy’s writing is full of passion for both the huge topic of water conservation and the specific, lush details that bring to life water’s impact on the world. Here, she describes a spadefoot toad after a desert rain:
“Every male toad is calling, a seesaw baritone refrain, a symphony of rain song, of life song. Find a mate; lay eggs. Within a few weeks tiny tadpoles wiggle out and transform quickly into toads.”
And here, she makes a connection kids might not have thought about before:
“A lot of water is necessary to manufacture ‘things,’ such as the shirt you are wearing. That shirt? About 700 gallons. Those new shoes? At least 2,000 gallons. The more stuff we buy, the more water is used to make more stuff.”
Want to add this lovely book to your study of water? Nancy has kindly sent me two copies to give away! Just enter here to win one of the two copies. Visit this post on my own blog to enter the contest through Rafflecopter.
The contest goes all week–if you don’t win, you can find the book at an indie bookseller on Indiebound or through Amazon. This Friday, I’ll share a poem from the book, too, and don’t miss Nancy’s recent online roundup of picture books about water–all of which would make lovely pairings or bookalikes for Water Runs Through This Book.
Orbis Pictus Committee: Cyndi Giorgis, Deborah Thompson, Joyce Herbeck, Suzii Parsons, Lisa Morris-Wilkey, and Fran Wilson. Not pictured: Kathy Short, Edward Sullivan, and Linda Walters
Nonfiction Monday 