Water Dance

I wish so much that the design for this book had been done differently. The illustrations are gorgeous, but each page has an inch-wide sort of beige border, and that just really ruins it. If they'd gone full-page with the illustrations, they'd be absolutely striking; as it is, they sort of look like badly framed hotel art. It's really a shame, because between those illustrations and the lovely text, it could easily have been five stars.

It can be hard to write an educational picture book. You don't have any plot (or you DO and it feels tacked on and weird), and it may be a subject - like the water cycle - that seems to go best with dry, flat, boring diagrams with arrows on them.

The author has completely eschewed the normal approach to go with beautiful, evocative paintings and poetry.

It's not as informative, maybe, as an early science reader approach, but for an introduction to the subject or a younger child - or just for having around the house! - I think this is the better option. So get one standard, run of the mill book on the water cycle, but be SURE to get this one as well. You won't regret it.

In Water Dance the water speaks of its journey from the mountains to the sea, from the sky to the land, through the land and across the terrain. The poetic verse trickles across the beautiful photographs of waters dance. This information book presents facts about water in both poetic form and includes a fact appendix about water for further discussion.

This is a beautiful prose book about water, with the text voiced by "water." Complementing the poetic text and inspiring paintings are fascinating scientific facts about water. Leveled to grade 3 for reading, 1 to 3 for listening.

Beautiful writing and beautiful images. This book is written as a poem about different forms of water. It also has explanations on the back of the different forms for more information. This would be great for descriptive language, different types of writing, or the water cycle. Works for all ages, probably best for k-2.

Water Dance has to be one of the most beautiful picture books I've seen in a while. Another lovely picture book that also features oil paintings is called Alphabet City by Stephen T. Johnson.

Water Dance follows the cycle of water from rain storm back along it's flow downhill to the sea, through evaporation and becoming rain again. Each page has a verse and a print of oil painting to compliment the words.

My son enjoys books with simple rhymes and I enjoy books that are well illustrated. This book will be a perfect book to share over and over again.

Thomas Locker blends beautiful oil paintings with scientific facts as he collaborates on this book with his science teacher wife, Candace Christianson. This is a science concept book that presents the water cycle-water in its various forms found in nature. The text effectively uses a first person voice, descriptive words and riddle format to engage students in each page: "I am....the rain, stream, river, sea, cloud, storm" etc.
This is a book that I would like to own. I have used it as a read aloud with Pre K students as well as students in fourth grade. With fourth graders, I read the story first and then followed up with an inquiry based, hands on science lesson about the water cycle called, "the Incredible Journey."