Customer Reviews

The Water Hole

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was a gift to my 2-year old from a girlfriend/kinder teacher. My son is now almost 5, his brother is 2.5, and this book is dog-eared! We read this at least 3x/week. The illustrations are breathtaking. Their animal vocabulary is amazing. Their attention to detail has definitely improved in many areas - they look for hidden images in all their books now. Animalia, also by Graeme Base, is spectacular too - another favorite in our home.

What a wonderful work this is! It is one of the more unique counting books to come out over the past twenty years; certainly one of the best illustrated and if the schools in which I work are any indication, one of the most popular and most used.

But this is so much more than just a counting book. I personally feel that this is Graeme Base's best work by far, and he has turned out some great ones. The author takes the concept of a water hole and tracks in natural ebb and flow throughout the seasons. It starts full and as the season progress it becomes smaller and smaller and all of the wildlife which use it disappear. Of course in the natural flow of things, the rains do return and all is well again.

What Base has done though is take this one water hole and with the turning of each page; with the increasing of the numbers from one to ten, he switches countries and indeed, entire ecosystems.

The book progresses from Africa to India, South American, Himalayas, North American, Rivers and Streams, China, Europe, Galapagos Islands and finally Australia. This may sound strange but trust me...it works.

The illustrations are extremely detailed and the young reader can spend literally hours (and believe me, many of them do) searching each picture for more animals, plants and strange little details (As an example...in the plate featuring India, the two tigers are drinking but if the reader looks closely they will see two beautifully painted frogs with strings of pearls around their neck. This is a nice bit of fantasy thrown in that the kids love).

The wildlife featured is done in very vivid and natural tones and extremely accurate, but as I said, the author has thrown in a bit of whimsy here and there to make it even more interesting. As with most of Base's work there is a strong ecological message here and this book goes quite well with a class studying such matters.

The text is quite simple and reflects perfectly what is going on in the illustrations.

This is most certainly one you want on your child's reading shelf.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

We used this book to assist in earning a silver star in cub scouts. It did help a whole lot.

What an incredible visual journey -- you can spend many many minutes on each page. Hidden animals and much to explore! On the surface this is a simple book, but it's anything but! Our standard 3-4 yr old birthday gift recently.

As an Elementary School Teacher, I LOVE anything written by Graeme Base, and this book is no exception. The pictures are wonderful and keep students' attention.

Graeme's books are all written in poem form and he's just awesome. Whether you are 10 or 100, you will enjoy all of his books. I've read every one of his books and am always in awe with how he comes up with such art and vocabulary!!

We were given our first copy of this book by a neighbor. When I asked my 5 year old son what his favorite book was so we could purchase it from Amazon to give to his cousin, he selected this book. It has beautiful pictures. You have to look close at each page to find hidden animals in the wood and water. My kids ages 4, 5, and 8 love to look at the pages to see what they will find.

I read other reviews of books that did not have the photos, this one does.

The story is a good one to teach conservation and the end of the book details a little on the origin of the animals and habitats on each page.

Originally we bought this book because on first glance, the illustrations were amazingly vivid. Later we were thrilled to discover that there were very cleverly hidden pictures in each page of animals from around the world, with a built in theme of water=life.

If you only read the book, it only takes about 5 minutes, and that includes taking the time to count the animals. However, if you spend the time to find each of the animals listed across the top and bottom of each page, then expect to spend about 15 minutes on ONE illustration alone!

This book has outlasted every other book we have picked for our kids, bar none. So good, in fact, that I will NOT pass it along to relatives, because it will be saved for my children's children. I will simply have to buy more copies to share!

The artwork is beautiful. My daughter really enjoys Graeme Base books. They hold her attention well.

This is one of the most beautifully illustrated books I have ever seen. It is a simple story that talks about animals from all over the world. We received this as a gift from Australia 2 years ago for my sons third birthday and it still remains one of his favorites. Don't pass this one up.