Review - Over and Under the Pond

Over and Under the Pond (Over and Under)
by Kate Messner
illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal
Date: 2017
Publisher: Chronicle Books (CA)
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 48
Format: e-book
Source: library

In this gorgeous companion to the acclaimed Over and Under the Snow and Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, Kate Messner and Christopher Silas Neal bring to life a secret underwater world. In this book, readers will discover the plants and animals that make up the rich, interconnected ecosystem of a mountain pond. Over the pond, the water is a mirror, reflecting the sky. But under the pond is a hidden world of minnows darting, beavers diving, tadpoles growing. These and many other secrets are waiting to be discovered...over and under the pond.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This is the third book in the Over and Under series. I quite liked the first one, but the second one fell a bit flat for me. Over and Under the Pond falls somewhere in the middle.

I found this book to be a little more interesting than Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, possibly because there seemed to be a wider variety of creatures covered. We see everything from mink and moose to crayfish and tadpoles, and each one is illustrated in a bold, graphic style. I'm still not a fan of the illustrations, but I thought these were more like the ones in Over and Under the Snow, so I did like them a little more.

The endnotes about the different creatures encountered in the book are copious. Perhaps a little too copious (I found myself groaning when I saw how much I still had left to read). However, those endnotes are what would make this book--and its two companions--great to have in a classroom library. There's plenty to learn from these little stories, and a teacher could use these books as a jumping-off point for future explorations.

Premise: 3/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 3/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3 out of 5