WATER ROLLS, WATER RISES / EL AGUA RUEDA, EL AGUA SUBE

Evocative watercolor images and graceful short poems in Spanish and English celebrate water in all its forms and around the world.

What appears at first to be a simple expression of the myriad forms of water—from waves to clouds, fog and frost and in lazy marshes, churning rivers, breaking waves and more—becomes a trip around the world as readers come to realize that the locations and people shown are just as wide-ranging. A picture key at the end identifies the location for each illustration. The cover images, the front inspired by Victoria Falls in southern Africa and the back, a geyser in Iceland, set the stage for the variety inside. Mora’s deceptively simple three-line poems are full of imagery, too. “In the murmur of marsh wind, / water slumbers on moss, / whispers soft songs far under frog feet.” (In Spanish: “En el viento susurrante de los pantanos, / el agua duerme sobre el musgo, / murmura suaves canciones bajo patitas de ranas.”) Watercolors are the perfect accompaniment to this pleasing collection, and So’s mastery of her medium is evident in the wide range of her illustrations, some with lines and detail, others with bold brush strokes or delicate shading. She concludes with an image of our watery world and its dry moon from space, an important reminder.

A lovely bilingual addition to the “sense of wonder” shelf.