10 February 2015 RAINDROPS ROLL by April Pulley Sayre, Beach Lane Books, January 2015, 40p., ISBN: 978-1-4814-2064-8

“Water dripping from our clothes,

You with raindrops on your nose.”

-- Joni Mitchell, “Eastern Rain”

“Rain plops.

It drops.

It patters.

It spatters.

Rain waters…

and washes…

and weighs down.

It thuds.

Makes mud.

It fills.

It spills.

Rain stops.”

For over three decades, I've been immersed in an ocean of children’s picture books, reading and reading aloud countless numbers of them. With all that, I’m astounded by the quality of the photographs in RAINDROPS ROLL.

Just as the average person in the 1980s could not have conceived of today’s laptops and smartphones, I could not have imagined then that photographers, publishers, and printers might one day team up to reproduce in a children’s picture book the quality of close-up nature images found here.

Can you remember what it was like as a kid to be given a magnifying glass or a beginner’s microscope and discover for yourself that there are so many things in front of our noses that we don’t normally see? RAINDROPS ROLL will remind children about the importance of really looking, that there are multiple levels of “seeing,” and that we should learn to look more closely at things in our everyday world.

There is one two-page spread (“Raindrops reflect.”) in which an entire conifer branch is clearly reflected in a hanging raindrop. Another photo shows a close up of a raindrop-covered daisy upon which a bedraggled fly has taken refuge. We see clearly how some raindrops have merged, so that there is an exponential difference in size between the tiniest and the largest drops on that flower. We see a saturated bluejay sitting stoically in a downpour, the back end of an earwig sticking out of raindrop festooned flowers, and spiderwebs adorned with watery jewels.

The accompanying text upon the pages is spare and unobtrusive, has a great beat, and features a rich vocabulary. The text is paired beautifully with the photos. The book concludes with a two-page explanation of rain-related science concepts.

When we talk about the need to expose children to nonfiction at an early age, this is the kind of book we should be advocating.

Here in drought-stricken northern California where I am happily sitting inside, thankful for the rain coming down today, RAINDROPS ROLL is a great rainy day treat.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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