WATER LAND

Water Land: Land and Water Forms Around the World by Christy Hale is one of those deceptive books that looks incredible simple but actually uses quite a few intricate design techniques.

Water Land walks readers through the various and sundry bodies of water and land forms that exist on our planet. They are coupled so that every other spread discusses what is essentially its opposite: land surrounded by water is an island, while water surrounded by land is a lake, and so on and so forth. We read about everything from gulfs and peninsulas to straits and isthmus', and, more importantly, we learn how these water and land masses interact with each other to form each other. 

Of course, that's not quite what makes this book as unique as it is. Each spread features a dye cut page that, when flipped, creates the opposite aforementioned form: so when looking at the spread of the bay surrounded by beach, we flip the page (which is mostly made of land because it's a bay!) and the cut-out shifts so that now we're looking at a cape amidst a giant body of water instead. Clearly the book took a lot of planning, and it's those fun cut-outs and the act of flipping the page—not to mention all the great details on the spreads themselves—that make the book a fun success. There's also a giant fold-out sheet at the end with even more information, like definitions of each land and water form, a map of where to find each form, and examples of each.

Water Land: Land and Water Forms Around the World published earlier this year from Roaring Brook Press! 

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