Water Water

Written and illustrated by Jessica Bromley Bartram

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

978-1-55455-556-7

32 pp.

Ages 5+

March 2021

Water Water is truly a summer book. It's about being on a lake, above and below, observing, feeling and imagining. It's about the known and the unreal, the contemporary and the old. And it's all from one young girl's perspective.

From Water Water by Jessica Bromley Bartram

As the child slips into the summer lake water, she experiences the slants of sunlight, the clouds of minnows and the striped rocks that contour the lake bottom. There's bass and crayfish below and swallows, loons and gulls above. Even as the day progresses into the night and sleep, the lake is her source of contemplation.

From Water Water by Jessica Bromley Bartram

She imagines the shoals as animals, whether an elephant or a pod of whales or even the Loch Ness monster. Moreover, though she cannot dive to the bottom of the deep lake, she pictures ancient sturgeon and musky among the ruins of steamships sunk by past storms. She is sure that she hears their whisperings.

Their words weave through every trough and crest until the lake is filled with stories that whisper around me into the night, telling of lighthouses and monster waves, ghost ships and black water.

Though the weather changes and the lake with it, she revels in its transformations, acknowledging them and those of its elements as part of the natural world around her.

From Water Water by Jessica Bromley Bartram

Water Water is a summertime tribute to the nature of a lake and a young girl's connection with it and its many elements, biological and physical and even imaginary. Like summer, it is leisurely, moving at a pace appropriate for warm weather. Even when the weather turns darker, cold and tumultuous, it's energetic but relaxed, as it cannot be changed and only be accepted. 

 

Though I've reviewed  Jessica Bromley Bartram's work previously as the illustrator of  Summer North Coming by Dorothy Bentley (2019), I think the Ottawa artist has enhanced her impression by connecting her artwork with her own words and personal experiences. (Her dedication includes a reference to "Georgian Bay, my heart's home.") There's an organic feel to her artwork, which appears to be primarily gouache and watercolour, and is perfectly in keeping with Water Water's raw nature. The water feels warm, the algae on the rocks is slimy and the wildlife skitter along above and below. 

For children who are fortunate enough to spend any time this summer on a lake, and for those who reminisce about the times they did, Jessica Bromley Bartram delivers us to that place for a sensory dip and a visit that is both hers and all our own.