![[Image]](images/ADropOfWater-page0003.png)
A Drop of Water
GORDON MORRISON
Houghton Mifflin Company Boston 2006
Walter Lorraine Books
I dedicate this book to the earth for all its wonders, its beauty, its resources, and for all it has
given, I am grateful. We owe it our past and our present, and we now owe it our protection,
for its future as well as our own.
Walter Lorraine Books
Copyright © 2006 by Gordon Morrison
All rights reserved. For information about permission
to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions,
Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South,
New York, New York 10003.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morrison, Gordon.
A drop of water / Gordon Morrison,
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-618-58557-1
ISBN-10: 0-618-58557-5
1. Hydrologic cycle—Juvenile literature. 2. Stream ecology—Juvenile literature. I. Title.
GB848.M67 2006
508—dc22
2006004564
Manufactured in China.
SCP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I have written and illustrated four other children's books. Each of them was about a year in the life of a subject: an eagle, an oak tree, a pond, and a neighborhood. But a year is made up of moments, tens of thousands of moments. And some of the best experiences I have had are when I have taken a moment to consider my surroundings. At those times, whether on a city sidewalk or a mountainside, I'm more aware and appreciative of the things around me, from the seemingly insignificant to the grand.
This is a story about a moment, the time it takes for a drop of water to fall from a child's fingertip. Water is the thread that takes you through the story; from the child, to the clouds, to the mountaintop, then down through forest, woodlands, streams, ponds, and back to the child by the meadow brook. By following this thread we travel through a wondrous landscape and pass plants and animals, including the child, doing what they do: soaring, drinking, eating, blooming, nesting, playing—living, all within the same moment.
The landscape in the story is made up of many places, or habitats. The story is as much about these places as it is about the plants and animals found in them. Each place is different from the next. The deep, dark spruce and fir forest is as different from the sunlit maple and birch woodland as the cold, still upland bog is from the quiet and mysterious lowland swamp. With different plants and different animals growing and living in those places where the conditions are right for them, each place has its own look and feel, smells and sounds.
In another way this book is also about a water cycle, because water is far more than the thread that connects things in a story. Without it there would be no clouds or rain, no forest or bog, no stream, woodland, pond, or meadow, and none of the plants or animals that grow and live in these places would exist. Water and its cycle make life possible on earth.
I hope the words and images in this story give you a sense of what it's like to visit these places. But more than that, I hope you will be inspired to seek out places like these and experience them for yourself. To take in the sights, sounds, scents, and feelings that make each one special. And make it your own.
But you don't have to go to distant places to know the scent of wet earth after a rainfall, the sound of wind through the trees, the surprise of an unexpected view, or the beauty of a flowering shrub; you just have to take a moment, wherever you are, to be aware of your surroundings. And, perhaps, consider all that is going on within the same moment...