Awards

• Short-listed for Book Sense Book of the Year Award (Children's Illustrated) 2002
• Short-listed for Virginia Readers Choice Award (Primary) 2005
• Winner of Bookseller's Choice (Picture Book) 2002
• Winner of Grand Canyon Reader Award (Picture Book) 2003

Overview

From the international bestselling author of Animalia! “An absorbing visual feast.” —Kirkus Reviews “Beautifully illustrated animal fantasy . . . Children will savor the gorgeous, animal-packed spreads.” —Booklist For fans of Graeme Base’s international bestseller Animalia, an exciting and fun new counting book that makes numbers as engaging as a vibrant jungle full of wild animals! One Rhino drinking at the water hole. “Snort, splosh!” (Mmm, delicious!) Two Tigers lapping at the water hole. “Grrrrr!” (Goodness gracious, how very delectable!) Three Toucans squawking around the water hole. “Ark, ark! Arrrk!” (It’s party time, fellas! Drink up!) Children will love counting from one to ten as animals of the world gather around a water hole. As one rhino gives way to two tigers, then three toucans, on up to ten kangaroos, die-cut pages reveal the water hole in ten different worldwide habitats, from African plains to Himalayan mountains to the Australian outback. But the water hole keeps shrinking, and with it the number of frolicking frogs. Can anything bring back the water that the animals all need to survive? No parent or child will ever be disappointed in getting Graeme Base’s Water Hole as a gift. Its colors and humor are timeless. Careful readers will find additional animals, many of them endangered, silhouetted in the borders of every spread and hiding within every landscape. A stunning fusion of counting book, puzzle book, storybook, and art book, The Water Hole features the layers of interest that make Graeme Base’s books among the world’s best-loved picture books. It’s a book children will ask to be read again and again.

Full Product Details

9780810945685

Table of Contents

Reviews

After the comic futuristic chronicle The Worst Band in the Universe (1999), Base returns to his Animalia (1987) roots. In big, natural scenes teeming with realistic detail, animals gather in increasing numbers around a waterhole that not only shifts from continent to continent with each turn of the page, but shrinks too, until Ten Kangaroos find only a dusty pit. Along with a superfluous die-cut hole, the artist adds a similarly shrinking crew of increasingly concerned-looking tropical frogs-some clad in bathing suits or pearls-to each spread, plus animal forms concealed within patterns of bark, rock, and foliage for the sharp of eye to pick out. It all makes an absorbing visual feast, and the ominous ecological theme is optimistically capped by a rainfall that restores the waterhole, bringing back many of the animals for a grand finale. This eye-filling, not altogether earnest counting book/consciousness-raiser will draw an unusually wide, and wide-eyed, audience. (Picture book. 4-9) (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

"Graeme Base is one of the world's favorite creators of picture books. Abrams has published all of his books in the United States. They include The Eleventh Hour, called ""a visual feast, ingeniously prepared,"" by Parents magazine. His other titles include The Sign of the Seahorse, The Discovery of Dragons, and The Worst Band in the Universe. ""Graeme Base's picture books sparkle with the spirit of their creator,"" says the Boston Sunday Herald. Graeme Base lives in Melbourne, Australia."

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