Rivers of Sunlight: How the Sun Moves Water Around the Earth

This book came in handed for my grand kids.

An awesome informative book that really summed up how the Sun drives the water cycle.

Ver much like the flow of operation and narrative type style. Folksy Fun artwork and colors. Easy to follow along strategy.

Excellent book!

The age range for this book is 1st to 3rd grade but I think it should be a bit younger. The pictures themselves are beautiful but after a few pages, felt repetitious and did not really enhance the educational quality of the book. My second grader said that the book spent too many pages on things we already know and only one or two pages on things we would like to know more about. I agree. How water temperature and salinity cause water to circulate around the globe (ocean conveyor belt) was not explained very clearly. Why this conveyor belt transport is important is touched on but not really emphasized either (heating northern countries, transporting oxygen deep into the ocean, bringing nutrients to the surface, etc). I think this book would have been more successful divided it into 2 different books- a younger age range book about the water cycle and an older age range about ocean currents.I love science and I love sharing science picture books with my daughter but this book just doesn’t quite reach the mark. I think this would be a good introduction for an advanced pre-K or kindergarten student.

This is the fourth picture book collaboration between Bang and Chisholm. All of the picture books done by Bang as author and illustrator and Chisholm, professor of Ecology at MIT have focused on the sun. This picture book is all about how the sun works to move water through the water cycle on earth. The role of the sun as it evaporates water to vapor. The way the sun heats and cools water. The way that water moves around the earth via ocean currents. It’s a book about the power of the sun and the value of water on earth with an emphasis on conservation and care.Bang and Chisholm have created a group of picture books that celebrate our earth and the wonder of the sun. This book includes water, looking at the small amount of fresh water that actually exists on earth, the way that water cycles through our world, and the power of the sun in all of these systems. The book is told in the voice of the sun, speaking as the source of winds, the power of evaporation, the source of ocean currents.Bang’s illustrations are lit by the sun. She rims trees in yellow, lights mountains in gold, and swirls lemon through the oceans. She shows the water in the atmosphere as a river of its own, dappled and bright but also subtle against the bolder parts of the illustrations. There is a delicacy to it that emphasizes how humans can damage water on our planet.Another winner from this collaboration of art and science, this picture book shines. Appropriate for ages 5-7.