Water Rolls, Water Rises: El agua rueda, el agua sube (English and Spanish Edition) - Hardcover

Pat is the author of numerous award-winning children s books. She is also the founder of the family literacy initiative El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children s Day/Book Day). Mora and her husband live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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. --Kirkus Reviews

In this bilingual book, Mora uses her travels around the world to talk about water in unique ways, while creating varied and compelling imagery. In the Grand Canyon, water is described as "skidding and slipping, swooping round bends, spinning on tree roots, careening down cliffs." Younger readers will enjoy the calmness of the words, while older readers will want to imitate the author's style and try their own hand at descriptive writing. So's watercolor illustrations match the tone of the writing perfectly and capture the different landscapes and cultural nuances. Use this book to introduce the water cycle, land forms, or poetry. Pair it with Splish Splash (HMH, 1994), a poetry book by Joan Bransfield Graham. --School Library Journal

In a bilingual tribute to water with a truly global scope, Mora s (I Pledge Allegiance) verse and So s (Brush of the Gods) spare mixed-media illustrations swing from placid to tempestuous, creating an effective and fitting ebb and flow. A description of a peaceful river scene inspired by the Yangtze ( Slow into rivers/ water slithers and snakes/ through silent canyons at twilight and dawn ) contrasts with an evocation of a violent Patagonia sea ( In storms, water plunges/ in thunder s brash roar,/ races through branches from lightning s white flash ). So s palette also shifts to suit the vista: children in Finland play by a brook framed by brilliant fall foliage, while smoky grays dominate a hushed scene featuring the human and feline residents of Venice, enshrouded in fog. Some of the images and allusions suggest water s life-sustaining power: men fish in India, Kenyan women fetch water from a well, and in the canals of Holland, water streams, water slides,/ gliding up roots of tulips and corn. An expressive celebration of the world's waterscapes. --Publishers Weekly