by Sam Juliano
What some baby boomers would attest were all the rage back in the days when the internet, intricate graphs and multi-dimensional picture books had yet to make their initially inauspicious debuts were globes and encyclopedic end papers sporing world maps. Both geographical incarnations gave early grade students a general survey of the shapes and sizes of the continents, the four oceans that invariably surround them and dot markers for major cities. In the less sophisticated examples lakes and seas weren’t noted and all land was shown in one-dimensional mode, flat and with no real differentiation between urban and rural. While these first impressions gave students only a taste of the geographical pie they often inspired further research and a voracious interest in bodies of water and land forms not generalized in the most rudimentary drawings and designs. Technological advances in printing of course has resulted in baroque textbook and travel maps, complex volumes with plastic color-coded overlays and globes with mountainous protrusions and oceanic dips. But even at the present time, most textbooks and learning materials are one-dimensional, though more more intricately annotated. For elementary school students, the picture book has become an invaluable tool for science, and geography as in most instances the works portray the behavior of humans in and around the locations and outdoor activities that are the prime focus of the books.
One of the most vivid, colorful and wholly irresistible of geographical picture books is also one that is well within the eligible radar of the Caldecott committee, which recognizes effectiveness of art and how it interacts with even the sparest text and in the case of wordless books how well that art replaces words in telling the story. Christy Hale’s Water Land: Land and Water Forms Around the World is an ingeniously designed and categorized die cut work that represents deft craftsmanship, eye-filling vignettes and for children and adults alike the interactive fun in turning the pages, morphing from one setting to another from one definition to another, and from land to water and then back. Hale saves her specific enrichment for the most spectacular fold out of any picture book released this past year, one that serves as a summation of all the pages before it, a place where definitions of the proceeding terms are given and remarkably an extensive addendum of water ways and land forms around the world that couldn’t possibly be included in the basic learning premise of the book, and in fact would be obtrusive if presented in any other way than they were.
The opening end papers are a sublime fluorescent blue which rightly gives the first nod to the element that covers 71% of the Earth’s surface. The back end papers conversely are sandy-orange, representing the other 29% and the book’s front and back cover (Water Land was not released with a dust jacket) are equally divided across the spine horizontally between the blue and sandy-orange. The title’s two base words are printed on their corresponding elements and between is a picture of a boy of color pushing a small boat from the beach into the water. After a resplendent title page intermingling the two dominant colors we see a Caucasian girl seemingly reaching out to catch falling leaves in an autumnal setting as the boy introduced on the cover is fishing from the rowboat in a pond-like body of water that for the economical purpose of the book is used as an example of a lake. The word is presented in bold, banner font. After one turns the page the seemingly blissful girl is now seen (and Hale superbly transform comfort into trepidation as the re-configured girl is fanning out an S.O.S. as the young fisherman hasn’t a care in the world, as he latches on to a bottled frantic-for-help message. The baby boomer definition of an exotic island with palm trees and coconuts might be the beloved mid-60s television series, Gilligan’s Island, though in that fondly regarded weekly show created by Sherwood Schwartz there are rarely frantic calls for rescue.
Beach umbrellas of the red, white and blue variety superabound on a sandy waterfront on a three-quarter grip around a “bay” which again is boldly emblazoned over the water which is the base for another exciting die-cut. The boy who sees double duty in the coming geographic metamorphosis is a dark-skinned boy on a beach chair with his hands raised to catch a ball, and them in the same position to shield himself from the splashes of a white girl wind surfing near the edge of the “cape” now jutting out and watched by a color-coordinated lighthouse and gulls overhead. The now amplified bay is a place where other surfers hone their craft. Because of its comparative rarity the concept of a “straight” (a narrow body of water connecting two larger bodies of water) might briefly baffle some early learners but Hale’s busy waterway convention of boats and barges in the blue expanse are handsomely complimented by the two circular land capes, one with seafood stands and outdoor tables and the other a bait and tackle outpost with the multi-colored look of the Gingerbread House from “Hansel and Gretel.” When the next turn of the page unveils an “isthmus” we are treated to close-ups of the seafood trucks delivering to the eateries and bait stores, while locals net their own catches for the day.
A splendid campsite tapestry depicts a wooden hamlet punctuated by a “system of lakes”, which are pictured in die cut as one larger body of water and two smaller ones. Then it is water’s turn to take on the dominating role when the next spread transforms the lakes into three small islands where camping is popular. Such a group of islands is known as an “archipelago.” Young people row boats around the islands in in the bay while others dive, swim and raft on donut floats. The final double page spread contrasts a gulf (a body of water almost surrounded by land) American students will surely think of the Gulf of Mexico bordering Florida, Texas and other southern states as well as Mexico. Hale’s gorgeous seascape canvas is populated by palm tress and pink storks, while in the “peninsula” overlay we see an active pirate ship, a sunken vessel and a whale surrounding the three-sided land configuration, where others islanders make preparations.
For Water Land’s grand finale Hale first off encapsulates the shapes of each of the prior drawings in the book’s two primary colors and provides coincide definitions and divides the two with an equidistant horizontal break. Readers then will open the huge fold-out which is a map of the world, again forged in sandy yellow and blue and document only the ten terms as they appear in significant locations. For some amateur geographers the choices are givens, like the Isthmus of Panama, the aforementioned Gulf of Mexico, the boot-shaped peninsula of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea, the Island of Tasmania off the Australian continent, the Great Lakes in the northern USA and Canada and the archipelago nation of Japan in Far East Asia. The Straight of Gibraltar might be equaled in in familiarity with the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, but Hale injects diversity in her locations and provides a plethora of other noted examples of the ten water and land forms. The master maps adds a bonus, identifying the “continent” of Asia. Water Land: Land and Water Forms Around the World is a captivating choice for classrooms where students are mesmerized by the die cuts, the witty illustrations and pictorial fireworks of the fold-out. Based on Montessouri teachings, the book is masterfully orchestrated and for the attention of Caldecott voters is also one of the most beautifully illustrated books of 2018 from a jack-of-all-trades veteran educator and artist.
Note: This is the twenty-first entry in the 2018 Caldecott Medal Contender series. The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running. In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration. It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 25 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender. Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end. The awards will be announced in late January, hence the reviews will continue until around the middle of that month.