The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story

Children's Literature

The elegance of science has been given a new twist in this exquisitely illustrated explanation of the water cycle—from the point of view of a single water droplet. The story begins with a snowflake falling to the jagged peak of a mountain...to a rocky pond bottom... flowing past villages in a raging river...falling on a cabbage leaf on a farm...pouring into a bathroom sink...passing through a fish's body...evaporating on a beach...becoming a tiny snowflake falling from a cloud. The water cycle becomes a perfectly logical and understandable, yet fascinating and beautiful part of the physical world. Totally aside from the science lesson, the pages spill over with Neil Waldman's cool watercolors in shades of blues, greens, purples and a few warmer colors when the sun is drying up our droplet! Many of the pages are worth framing and the author-illustrator has indeed been honored internationally for his artwork. The book could be on recommended lists for both science and art. 2003, Millbrook, Ages 5 to 10.
— Karen Leggett

School Library Journal

Gr 1-5-A beautiful take on the water cycle. Waldman traces the journey of a single drop of water throughout the year, with each month receiving its own spread. The water begins as a snowflake that melts into a droplet, flows into the ground, bubbles up in a spring, flows into a farm's irrigation system, evaporates into the morning fog, becomes part of a cloud, rains down, enters a plumbing system, washes a little girl's face, flows out to the ocean, gets swept onto the shore and evaporates into the sky to become a snowflake once more. The clear text is undeniably lyrical: "It flowed past fields of waving sea grasses, over corals of many colors, and into the mouth of a great striped fish." The real stunners here, though, are the dazzling, cool-toned paintings that convey the wonders of nature with delicate precision. A must for libraries and science classrooms.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Maryland School for the Deaf, Columbia Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.