WATER

An earnest call to appreciate and conserve our planet’s precious fluid.

Along with describing water’s origins in Earth’s early history, tracing the ever flowing water cycle, and closing with suggestions for shrinking our “water footprint” by wasting less around the house, Barr surveys ways we both use and misuse fresh water—perceptively noting, for example, that dams turn it into a dandy source of renewable power but also often destroy natural habitats. She also promotes the benefits of piping clean water to dry settlements in “poorer countries,” specifically for the girls and women who are otherwise forced to carry it from remote sources. A claim that only a “tiny part” of the water we use is recycled is at best badly phrased, though (isn’t all water recycled?), and she confusingly uses green water to describe not algae pollution (the most common usage of the term) but water taken up by plants from the soil. She also delivers her lecture in generalizations that are less likely to motivate young readers than splashier treatments of the topic like Antonia Banyard and Paula Ayer’s Water Wow! (2016), illustrated by Belle Wuthrich. Still, the message is worth the urgency, and Engel’s bright artwork, which runs to expansive landscapes dotted with small images of wild flora and fauna or diverse human figures in both urban and country settings, shows what’s at stake. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Confusing in spots and a bit dry for the top shelf but catches the wave of concern for an increasingly scarce resource.