BUBBLES…UP!

A swimming pool and a young swimmer create watery magic together.

Davies’ lighthearted, lively bit of poetry describes the singular joy of an afternoon at the neighborhood pool in this celebration of underwater swimming and splashing. “PLUNGE! / under / under / under,” reads the text as a child with black hair and light brown skin and a colorfully striped one-piece bathing suit dives and floats and soars underwater. “Bubbles…UP!” A younger, lighter-skinned little person wearing floaties and orange swim trunks stays by the poolside with an adult while a crowd of children with many different hair types and colors of skin splashes and shouts in the pool. Sánchez’s illustrations capture the way sunlight ripples through water over blue-patterned tiles and convey the blissful freedom of weightlessness, diving to the bottom of an imaginary ocean world and rocketing to the top amid bubbles. A brief thundershower clears the pool, and everyone huddles near the snack bar—but when the all-clear sounds, it’s back to the water. There’s a dramatic rescue of a rubber duck: “You are fast…/ —aqueous— / A watery dolphin, all flash and fin.” There’s cuddling—for a moment—in a towel after, and then back to the water, where the smaller child joins in the fun at last. The exuberant sense of being purely in the moment is delightful. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 19% of actual size.)

Superbly splashy, immersive, and effervescent.