The Ways of Water: Blue Floats Away by Travis Jonker

LITTLE BLUE LIVED NEAR THE NORTH POLE WITH HIS PARENTS.

THEY WERE VERY CLOSE.

But life for a floating iceberg has its ups and downs along with the temperature.

And one day, with a CRACK! Little Blue finds himself separated from his parents and floating away in the cold blue sea.

"I'LL BE BACK SOON," HE CALLED, BUT HE WASN'T SO SURE!

Little Blue wasn't quite alone for long. Soon he sees exciting new things--dorsal fins cutting through the icy water. And after some time, he sees more new things, beautiful things--swift sailboats that sped past him. At first he doesn't notice the the ocean is growing warmer and he is beginning to shrink, faster and faster.

SOMETHING UNPLANNED BEGAN TO HAPPEN.

Little Blue melts into the big blue ocean. But then, something new began to happen. He's rising up and up into the sky as tiny droplets which meet and meld together, and Little Blue becomes a cloud, floating northward among some new friends, the seabirds and the sailboats who teach him about the directions, north, south, east, and west. The air begins to grow colder and colder, and snowflakes drop from him into the icy sea. And then....

LITTLE BLUE SEES---HIS PARENTS!

Savvy second graders will recognize that Travis Jonker's Blue Floats Away (Abrams, 2021) is the story based that favorite anchor of primary grade science, the mighty Water Cycle, as seen in the northern hemisphere--a concept that rules much of physical science and earth science. In this beguiling story of a charming little iceberg from his calving from his parental iceberg near the North Pole through the physical process through all of earth's water goes, primary grade students get the whole story. Artist Grant Snider's cute little iceberg and his journey from ice to condensation and precipitation, from solid to liquid to gas and back again, sweetly reinforces the science lesson at the root of Travis Jonker's story. Author Jonker also appends an author's note, uniting the changes in state involved in the water cycle and its relationship of rapidly melting ice to with climate change and how young students can become part of the solution.

As School Library Journal adds, "There are other books about the water cycle out there but the journey of the individual character and his wonder at the voyage brings an empathetic element that will engage young readers.