PRESCHOOL
Davies, Jacqueline

Bubbles...Up!

(2) PS Illustrated by Sonia Sánchez. Davies's playful rhyming text depicts a child's eventful afternoon at a pool brimming with swimmers of all ages, sizes, and skin tones. Readers are quickly immersed in the young swimmer's exploration of the under: "You under-sit. / You under-talk. / You under-smile. / You under-walk." The irregular, blocky text shape-shifts alongside the splashes and somersaults on each page. A sudden afternoon thunderstorm rolls in, "so loud it makes your eardrums ring / so loud it makes the young one cling." Swimmers huddle undercover, wrapped in towels, until the all-clear sounds and they jump back into action. A young child's rubber ducky floats off into the deep end, but a quick rescue leads to celebration and a towel break at pool's edge--that is, until the water beckons to the child once again. Sánchez's (Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away, rev. 9/20) textured mixed-media illustrations brilliantly capture the sensations of a pool excursion, from the reflective blues of tiles wavering beneath the water line to the fizzy bubbles from cannonball jumps. Every turquoise-covered page evokes the sound of splashes, excited squeals, and squeaky inflatables familiar to frequent swimmers. An ebullient ode to a simple summertime joy that will surely ­encourage both novice and adventurous swimmers to make a splash of their own.

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