Water: The Elements

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In this stunning debut volume of the photo-essay series The Elements, Robbins (Power Machines; Bridges) combines handtinted photographs and spare, poetic text to celebrate the many forms and uses of water. Oversized pages and an understated design give center stage to the photos; large, softly colored, they capture a wide range of scenes, from the eerie rolling fog on a beach in Nantucket to the towering desert mesas of Monument Valley, the dragon-like puffing of a steam train to a baby's baptism. Handwritten captions identify the subjects and their geographic locations, heightening the illusion that the reader is browsing through a personal photo album. Although the text is marred by distracting internal rhymes (e.g., ``When water gets cold enough, it's not liquid anymore-it's no longer wet, and the stuff won't pour''), it is both easy to read and packed with information. Ages 5-8. (Nov.)

School Library Journal

Gr 3-4-Robbins looks at water in its many varied forms and uses. His brief text guides readers through its liquid, gaseous, and solid states; through water for amusement, survival, agriculture, power, and simple beauty. (He does not mention hydrogen or oxygen, in tandem or solo.) The readable narrative is interspersed with topical ``out-thoughts''; on fishing and the problems of overfishing, or on suggesting that youngsters inquire where waste water goes (the scientifically minded might prefer the term ``urinate'' to ``pee''). Accompanying the text are illustrations that have become Robbins's trademark: black-and-white photographs painstakingly hand-tinted to impart an elusive quality that is somewhere between true illustrative artwork and the artistic technology of photography. The colors are delicate and restrained, providing viewers with an open window into the artist's perception of his world. The scenes range from prosaic ice cubes in a glass to lyrical seascapes, from stark desert to lush northern rain forest. Even the dust jacket-a translucent piece imprinted with the title and author's name-is like a foggy veil over the true cover-another tinted photograph of water: dimpling, purling, reflecting. Unusual and unique.-Patricia Manning, Eastchester Public Library, NY