Water: a book, a poem, a brief essay … a continuation of the celebration of water.

In this two-part celebration, first, a book to enjoy:

Water’s Children, by Angele Delaunois, illustrated by Gerard Frischeteau, and translated by Erin Woods, is a luscious picture book that celebrates the many ways water is universal to us all. Water is life, play, food, and beauty:

“… child of water … tell me about the water you see, the water you drink, the water that bathes you.”

Water’s Children does just that in rich colors and cerulean images of earth, sky, and sea, children from a diversity of countries around the world show us the unique importance, the joy, of water in their lives. From Quebec, children sing out that “water is everywhere … the bathtub full of bubbles…water is a burst of laughter. A Nunavut child states, “for me, water is winter: the ocean and the river trapped beneath the ice … the frost that whitens my lashes, the solitude and silence of the long polar night. Imagine hiking up a mountain in Peru or Bolivia, one might meet on the steep path a child who proudly explains that “for me, water is a basket of vegetables.”

The author, Angele Delaunois, brings this lyrical prose to a satisfying ending with the image of an unborn child floating in a “water bath.” And thus, “child of the future, not yet born … For you, water is the song of your mother.”

For us all, everywhere and always, water is life. And we are water.