Water Land: Land and Water Forms Around the World

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Water Land:  Land and Water Forms Around the World

Book Information

Category
Non-Fiction
Reader Personality Type
Illustrator
Publisher
Roaring Brook Press May 2018
Curriculum
Science Curriculum

“map

  1. a diagrammatic representation of an area of land or sea showing physical features, cities, roads, etc.”

-- from Google search results

 

“Down by the bay

Where the watermelons grow”

-- Traditional

 

“A bay is a body of water almost surrounded by land. It is usually smaller than a gulf.”

-- from the backmatter in WATER LAND

 

From what we know, life on Earth began in a place where the water and the land met. Human civilization also began where the water and the land came together. This makes perfect sense to me, since there’s no place I love more than a beach, where the water meets the land

 

WATER LAND is an innovative and artful die cut picture book that visually defines land and water forms. These forms include lake; island; bay; cape; strait; isthmus; system of lakes; archipelago; gulf; and peninsula.

 

The book’s creator, Christy Hale, has paired land and water forms so that each page turn reveals an inverse relationship between a land form and the water form.. For example, the book begins with a die-cut illustration of a lake. The illustration is captioned “lake,” Turning the page brings us to the other side of the die cut. Now, instead of a lake (a body of water surrounded by land), we see an island (a piece of land surrounded by water).

 

Moving from page to page, readers repeatedly encounter inverse relationships between land and water forms. The land and water change places as we view and learn lake and island; bay and cape; strait and isthmus; system of lakes and archipelago; gulf and peninsula.

 

It is useful to recognize that these depictions of land and water forms are components of geography, mapping vocabulary, and history. As explorers set out across the ocean from Europe many centuries ago, they were accompanied by cartographers who recorded the curves of the shoreline on the maps they drew so that their leaders back home could understand what was “out there.”

It is also useful for young readers to understand that mapmaking is a skill where art and information can intersect.  I was recently reminded of this when I visited the world’s largest series of painted maps in the Vatican Gallery of Maps.

WATER LAND concludes with textual definitions for each land and water form, and a large fold-out map of the world that highlights examples of these land and water forms.

WATER LAND gives children the opportunity to learn useful geographic and map-related terminology (big words to impress grownups) while also recognizing the interesting relationships that exist between these geographic forms. It’s a fun, eye-opening, unique, and educationally valuable book.

32 pages        978-1250152442         Ages 3-6

Recommended by:   Richie Partington, MLIS, California  USA

See more of his recommendations:  https://richiespicks.pbworks.com

************

A lake turns into an island. A cozy bay into a secluded cape. A gulf with sea turtles transforms into a peninsula surrounded by pirate ships.

This unique information book for the very young switches between bodies of water and corresponding land masses with the simple turn of a page. Readers will delight as the story of Water Land unfolds and will see just how connected the earth and the water really are.--from the publisher

******** Based on Montessori teachings, die-cut pages identify and contrast types of water bodies and their corresponding land masses to help young readers understand how connected the earth and the water really are.--from the piblisher

Keywords: connections; interconnectedness

 

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