Nibi is Water = nibi aawon nbiish

Joanne Robertson, the author/illustrator of The Water Walker, has provided both the brief text and the illustrations for a board book about the many ways in which water plays a role not only in our lives but also in the lives of plants, insects and animals. And so youngsters will see children engaging with water by doing such things as swimming in pools, having baths, drinking water, brushing their teeth and washing dishes. Plants are watered in order for them to grow while the roots of sugar maple trees suck up moisture from the ground. Butterflies sip from flowering plants and bears flip fish out of streams. The book’s concluding eight pages move away from listing water’s uses and call for young readers to show thankfulness and respect for water and to be good stewards of this resource because, as Robertson concludes, “Water is life”.

The book’s text is actually bilingual, Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) and English, with the former appearing at the top of each page and the latter at the bottom. The finished board book will include a concluding Anishinaabemowin pronunciation guide. With generally just one English word per page, the English text uses an abcb rhyme scheme. Robertson’s inclusive, cartoon-like illustrations are placed between the two texts. Some youngsters might pick up on the faint yellow found in the toilet bowl on the “flush page”. In some instances, strong illustration/text correspondence would allow a youngster to “read” the text without any adult intervention, with good examples being “drink” and “brush”. However, there are other pages, such as “shrink” and “sip”, in which the illustration/text agreement is much less obvious. The demands of the rhyme scheme also had a child “row[ing]” a canoe, rather than paddling it.

Like many board books, Nibi is Water = nibi aawon nbiish will assist youngsters in increasing their vocabulary, but this time, not in one but two languages. Perhaps more importantly, the board book provides an early introduction to the concept of caring for one of the world’s most important resources.