The Little Raindrop

by Joanna Gray

Overview

From cloud to puddle, and puddle to stream, the Little Raindrop is making its way on the remarkable journey that is Earth’s water cycle. In this inviting story—illustrated with pastels for a soft, full color—readers are taught about science and nature through a character-driven narrative that leads a little raindrop on a big adventure. With an easy-to-follow plot that teaches precipitation, water flow, and evaporation, The Little Raindrop offers a sweet story full of learning and discovery.

Featuring a heartwarming adventure from author Joanna Gray and beautiful pastel illustrations by Dubravka Kolanovic, The Little Raindrop takes readers on a fun and educational ride through the water cycle.

Sky Pony Press, with our Good Books, Racehorse and Arcade imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of books for young readers—picture books for small children, chapter books, books for middle grade readers, and novels for young adults. Our list includes bestsellers for children who love to play Minecraft; stories told with LEGO bricks; books that teach lessons about tolerance, patience, and the environment, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781435152540
Publisher:	Sandy Creek
Publication date:	01/20/2014
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	152,913
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Joanna Gray started writing after being inspired by her three children, who were full of questions about the world around them. She enjoys walking with her family and their dog, reading, and generally enjoying life as much as possible. She resides with her family in Leeds, England.

Dubravka Kolanovic is a Croatian painter and illustrator. Kolanovic earned a degree in painting after studying at Savannah College of Art and Design and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. In addition to being a children’s book illustrator, Kolanovic aids scientific researchers as a part of Earthwatch and is an illustrator of UNICEF cards and posters. She lived in Zadar, Croatia, with her husband and sons.

Editorial Reviews

05/01/2014
PreS-Gr 2—Beginning with a beautiful fall through a rainbow, the title character takes the journey from the beginning to the end of the water cycle. Gray delivers a complex scientific process in an approachable way through well-chosen words while Kolanovic's illustrations are superbly suited for the story. The raindrop's adventures are documented in soft pastels displaying the beauty of Earth's rainbow, streams, rivers, and oceans, while he encounters a variety of birds, bunnies, worms, moose, bears, and aquatic life. The raindrop makes his way ultimately to the ocean shore, to be evaporated back up into the sky and begin the voyage all over again. While not nonfiction, this title would make a great introduction to nature units covering forms of precipitation or types of bodies of water. Additionally, with the smoothly flowing story and picturesque illustrations sweeping across the spreads, it would make a fine read-aloud as well. Just like water in real life, the little raindrop can make a big impact on his readers.—John Trischitti, Midland County Public Libraries, TX

School Library Journal

2014-01-15
Little Raindrop journeys from cloud to sea and back again. This is the water cycle, but it's a simplistic telling that lacks any scientific vocabulary and stars an anthropomorphized water droplet with a face, hands and feet. Little Raindrop's adventure begins as he falls from a cloud "[o]ne dark and stormy day," but by the page turn, there's enough sunlight to have made a rainbow, which Little Raindrop falls through, enjoying the colors along the way. Landing in a depression on a rock, his journey continues when other drops (nonanthropomorphized) accumulate enough to make his puddle overflow. Joining a stream, he sees all kinds of animals and chases the sticks the children toss in the water. When his stream joins a river, Little Raindrop avoids the sharp rocks of the waterfalls; in the sea, he meets dolphins. Coming to rest on the sand, "Little Raindrop got hotter and hotter, until the warmth of the sun drew him up into the air," still in the shape of a raindrop, where he joins other smiling droplets in a gray cloud. Kolanovic's illustrations have the gritty look of crayon drawings. Little Raindrop's surroundings match his small size; while the background details are simple, the animals he encounters all sweet—cloyingly so. Fortunately the wellspring of intellectually respectful titles on the water cycle is far from dry. Even the youngest children don't deserve this degree of dumbing down. (Informational picture book. 4-6)

Kirkus Reviews