Water in the Park by Emily Jenkins (review)

A bustling city park on a hot summer day is a center of activity, much of it water-based, in this engaging picture book. Morning starts with the waking up of the pond turtles and the arrival of the dog walkers (whose pups play in the pond); then a few early moms and babies turn up as the sprinkler goes on, and "the playground is crowded by ten o'clock" as kids dump water in the sandbox. Grownups come to eat lunch, feeding the fish in the pond with their bread, and the afternoon brings a new shift at the playground. The diehards leave when the sprinkler's turned off, the dogs come out one last time for an evening walk and swim, but now the weather has turned to rain: "One heavy drop hits the pond—plop!—and the sky opens" and "everyone is now very, very very wet."

Jenkins states that this story, inspired by her summer experiences in New York's Prospect Park, is a homage to Tresselt's White Snow, Bright Snow and Zolotow's The Park Book; it's also reminiscent of Lynne Rae Perkins' Snow Music (BCCB 12/03) with its lyrical as-it-happens, day-in-the-life approach and intriguingly detailed landscapes. The author has always been a master of text that's simultaneously original and authentic (as in her delightful Five Creatures, BCCB 2/01), and that talent's on excellent display here, with language that's musical yet simply descriptive ("The park attendant tuns the sprinkler off at six. One baby laughs when the water disappears. Another cries"). Spirited scraps of dialogue ("You are the dog of all dogs," says a pet owner encouragingly to his recovering pooch) add vitality, while there's subtle patterning in the day's trajectory and in recurring motifs such as the dog-walking; since those patterns reflect kids' own experiences of daily routine, they'll immediately catch the gentle rhythm. The water theme is a low-key thread throughout, but its inclusion is natural and unforced, emphasizing the point that water is central in ways we don't always think about.

The illustrations, a blend of ink washes, orderly pencilwork and hatching, and digital colors, vary between sweeping double-page landscapes and smaller spot-art scenes. It's a great book for people-watching, as a cast of hundreds, in diverse sizes, shapes, races, and cultures, meanders through the park; while the facial portraiture is speedy, the dress, companions, and activities vary enough to allow viewers to follow people through spreads (young Claudie K., who never wants to leave the park, and her patient babysitter are a good place to start). Compositions are delicately rhythmic, with playground fencing, park paths, and terraced houses providing linear movement (the paths in particular are alluringly followable) that anchors the jubilant organic messiness of the human and canine figures. The water varies effectively from a gleaming sheen on the concrete to a deliciously rippling blue pool to, finally, a slanting silver downpour that completely alters the landscape, galvanizing people into swift movement and umbrellas into opening.

In addition to being a mesmerizing tale in its own right, the book offers a wide range of possible uses—it's rich with opportunities for one-on-one seek and find, whether of water or of people, and its immediacy and vividness make it a sneaky alternative for days when weather kills off an actual park visit. It could also encourage kids to create their own chronicles of local gathering points—or just to hit the park. (See p. 468 for publication information.)