Drop Around the World

• Benjamin Franklin Silver Award for Best Science/Environment Book

— Childsake.com (February 2005)

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A Drop Around the World by Barbara Shaw McKinney is a well-written poem that teaches about the trail of a raindrop anywhere in the world. Girls from ages 5 to 12 will easily grasp McKinney?s lesson, while younger readers will enjoy the poetry and pictures. Included are four pages of science information to help adults explain the concepts behind the raindrop journey. This title will be a useful addition to beginning earth-science classes and to lessons on the use of language. Exotic animals and people of different heritages are shown in a clever and sympathetic manner.

— BookWomen – Linda Hutton (Feb/Mar 2002)

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Children will never view rain in the same way after reading this book. The story takes readers on a journey around the world with a single raindrop as it is transformed many times from liquid to its solid and vapor states. Composed in rhyming couplets, each stanza conveys scientific concepts about the water cycle, and events in the story are cross-referenced by symbols to a section which describes various properties of water. This excellent resource for ages 5 to 12 is accompanied by a 48-page teacher’s guide that shows how to incorporate the book across the elementary curriculum as part of a six-week unit.

— The Green Teacher

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(Combined review of A Drop Around the World. and Pass the Energy Please!)

Teacher, writer and poet Barbara McKinney has written two books which attempt to bring some beauty and art to science lessons. In A Drop Around the World, she describes the path of a drop of water through different parts of the world, including regions where water is polluted. Its emphasis is on describing how essential water is in any environment and how necessary it is to complete essential activities. This book is aimed at children ages 5 to 12 and I found the content to be entirely appropriate.

The illustrations are perhaps the best feature about this book. Mr. Maydak did an incredible job capturing essential details that will surely get the attention of children and adults alike. In addition, there is a separate teacher’s guide that presents ways to incorporate this book into the elementary teacher’s curriculum. . . . It also includes a section named “A Magic Show – Starring H2O” which explains different phenomena such as condensation and pollution, among others.

. . . Both books succeed in slowly and cumulatively making the points that the author intends. She manages to present things just as they are. As a former elementary and middle school teacher, I found these two books would make a nice addition to a creative and challenging curriculum. In addition, parents of young children would enjoy using these books as a good source to create a story or to simply add to child’s bookshelf.

— NABT (National Assoc. of Biology Teachers)
Reviewed by Jose Vazquez – Univ. of Illinois at Chicago

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In A Drop Around the World, storyteller Barbara Shaw McKinney and illustrator Michael S. Maydak collaborate to take young readers ages 5 to 12 on a wondrous journey from Maine to Mumbai following just one raindrop as it touches plant, animal and human life all around the world. Traveling with Drop, readers will see the world, inside and out, from solid, liquid and vaporous viewpoints. The everlasting, ever-changing Drop inspires respect for water and its unique role on Earth. Imaginative and informative, A Drop Around the World is highly recommended for all young readers.

— The Midwest Book Review – The Children’s Bookwatch

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The worldwide guide is a raindrop, whose face resembles the serious “man-in-the-moon” image. This cycle-teaching picture book, rhymed in an a-a, b-b pattern, allows the reader to follow one raindrop to interesting global places and peoples. The twenty-two pages of illustrations repeat the raindrop shapes within their compositions; and the four pages of information about water at the book’s end are a plus to the story’s text.

— Children’s Literature – Patricia Timbrook

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This book will take your students on an amazing journey – from steam to snow, from stratus cloud to subterranean crack – as a drop of rain touches plant, animal, and human life around the world. The teacher’s guide includes lesson plans on water, habitats, and character education.

— Learning Magazine – Back-to-School 2002

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A Drop Around the World is an excellent book for children ages 6-9, with great illustrations and new vocabulary words for children to learn. It is an easy book to read and relates to topics taught in schools.

Zoey:
“I really liked this book. We have been studying this in school. It’s fun to follow the raindrop and see how they help animals and plants. I learned some new words and could go outside after it rained to see what raindrops did. I also learned how raindrops start.”

Nana:
Zoey has such a quizzical mind and after reading A Drop Around the World, she was able to tell me where raindrops came from and where they go. The illustrations gave her the opportunity to use her imagination.

— Kids Reader Views – Zoey Crane (age 6) and Nana (May 2011)