Over and Under the Pond

Over and Under the Pond

Written by Kate Messner

Illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal

2017

Age range: 4-8

Two different worlds await discovery in Over and Under the Pond. A boy and his mom take an excursion on the water where they realize that the water is a mirror that is “reflecting the sky”. As the boy sees his own reflection within the pond, he asks what is down there. His mother replies: a hidden world.

Readers will delight in comparing the two habitats, finding a moose that enjoys waterlilies and a woodpecker on the hunt for ants in one abode, and tadpoles learning to hop, and follow a beaver in it's quest to find the right root to digest in the other. Different dwellings, with diverse species, however, Kate Messner’s storytelling interweaves both systems together to let a reader know that every animal is important to the pond’s ecosystem.

A Bookish Decree:

Dive in and traverse through nature