Riparia's River
The spirit of rivers comes alive literally in Michael J. Caduto s charming new children s book, Riparia s River. By gently teaching a small group of children about river systems and habitats, Riparia empowers the children to lead a community effort to restore an ecosystem badly out of balance. The combination of education, empowerment and action make the book ideal for inspiring readers to care about all water resources. --Dennis L. Nelson, President & CEO of the Project WET FoundationThis story will resonate with everyone who splashed in a stream as a child. Reading it, I was transported back to the warm, lazy days of summer chasing frogs and butterflies and wondering what all the green stuff was growing in the water. Riparia embodies the spirit of people everywhere who care about streams, wildlife, and clean water. --Paul T. Zeph, Former President, North American Association for Environmental EducationA fairy tale about water and a lesson on how kids can help clean up their streams and ponds long live Riparia! --Alice Outwater, author of Water: A Natural HistoryRiparia's River is an eco-tale for children that teaches both the cause and the creation of solutions for non-point pollution of flowing water streams and rivers. Filled with lush, sun-splashed watercolor paintings of river and riverside habitat and the birds, insects, and plants that shelter there, Riparia's River is a beautiful teaching fable for children in elementary grades 3-6. A group of friends discovers their favorite swimming spot on the river is polluted, and harmful to the fish and animals that live in it. They are taught by a lady naturalist named Riparia what can be done to clean and repair the riverbanks and restore clean river habitat. The children cooperate and work with a will, inviting others to help when their replanting of riverside plants project grows. Riparia's River is a wonderful, empowering story for children who will inherit tomorrow the rivers, habitat, and creatures of today s ongoing stewardship. A nice community spirit message is embedded in the illustrations use of multiracial profiles for all the children, conveying the added idea that cleaning up our rivers and habitat is a global concern. ----Midwest Book ReviewA fairy tale about water and a lesson on how kids can help clean up their streams and ponds long live Riparia! --Alice Outwater, author of Water: A Natural HistoryRiparia's River is author and ecologist Michael Caduto's story of a community coming together to bring the river they love back to its natural, clean state.Upon finding their favorite swimming hole full of slimy, smelly stuff one summer day, a group of young friends decide to follow the riverbank upstream to find out why. From a woman named Riparia, whom they find 'surrounded by the arching branches of ancient trees,' they learn about the ways in which a nearby farm has been unintentionally affecting the river's health, and come up with a plan to set things right.Riparia gives the river voice by showing the kids how it responds to the process of human and natural disturbance. That she quietly and mysteriously disappears after showing them may leave some readers wondering.... Who was she, really? If a river could talk, it is likely it would sound like Riparia.Many of the solutions currently offered to our environmental challenges seem to rely upon a faith in the power of education, community and the human spirit, and that is precisely the message Riparia's River conveys so well. Out of concern for their river, a group of children inspires a community to come together to restore and protect the body of water they all rely on and benefit from. Together they move the farm s fence and transplant 'wildflowers, shrubs, and trees between the river and the new fence-line' to create a buffer zone.Pastuchiv's soft, fuzzy watercolors feature undefined characters that serve the text well. By making the children look vaguely generic (albeit clearly multicultural in their complexions), the illustrations reinforce the idea that they represent all children; that their river could be our river; their efforts, ours.As more and more people these days learn about the importance of living in harmony with nature, this book provides a timely opportunity for parents and educators to talk to children about the role humans play in the creation of environmental imbalances in particular those related to river habitats and their ecosystem and how we can all be a part of the solution.At story's end, the children head out to the now clean swimming hole, and readers are presented with 'The Fauna of Riparia s River,' a list of birds, animals, reptiles and insects that appear throughout the book, as well as an invitation to find them all. --Paper TigersA fairy tale about water and a lesson on how kids can help clean up their streams and ponds long live Riparia! --Alice Outwater, author of Water: A Natural History