Wet

Written and illustrated by Carey Sookocheff

Henry Holt and Company

978-1-62779-775-7

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

June 2017

Wet is about being wet, about getting wet, about the manner of getting wet and about the gratification or annoyance of being wet.  Wet may be all about wetness but it certainly isn't all wet as topics go.

From Wet by Carey Sookocheff

Through a series of single- and double-spread illustrations, author and illustrator Carey Sookocheff has a boy recollecting how he becomes wet at a pool and elsewhere: quickly or slowly, with friends or by himself, deliberately and accidentally. He also talks of cats, fish, and dogs, floors, painted park benches and more.  He makes note of washing hands and splashed shirts, puddles and spills, and tears, baths and laundry.  But he ends his day in the dryness of a safe, warm bed with only kisses to moisten his face.

From Wet by Carey Sookocheff

Carey Sookocheff, who has illustrated her own Solutions for Cold Feet and Other Little Problems (Tundra, 2016) as well as Maureen Fergus' Buddy and Earl series of picture books, creates a child-like ambiance to her illustrations that serves the text wonderfully. There's a simplicity in spirit, recounting how wetness happens and what it looks like.

Wet is a fun little book that doesn't have to be taken as lesson-building material but it could be used so effectively for preschool and kindergarteners learning about emotions and even states of matter or the water cycle.  Because Wet is so familiar in its circumstances relating to swimming, baths, rain, pets and bedtime, children will have no problem relating to this boy's activities as they change and affect his state of dryness.  Whether soaking wet or lightly dampened, it's not so bad being wet.  And Wet, the book, is neither a wet blanket nor a damp squib, and summer is definitely a time to relish being wet.

From Wet by Carey Sookocheff