Member Reviews

‘The Water Cycle’ by Chris Oxlade is an engaging book from the Geo Detectives series. Join Ava and George as they explore the natural world. Readers learn about exciting geography topics, including where rain comes from and how the water cycle works. With fun activities and investigations, this book encourages young readers to investigate geography topics while having fun.

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The water cycle story and the experiments in this book are great for your kids or students! I really like that the two are combined in one book, keeping it interesting for kids who might not enjoy an experiments-only book quite as much as one with a storyline as well.

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The Water Cycle is another great addition to the Geo Detectives series by Anita Ganeri & Chris Oxlade. A perfect introduction to climate and the natural world for young readers, stuffed full of neat facts and awesome experiments. With easy to find materials, and ingredients, budding geo detectives can get up close and personal with the water cycle and more! I read this with my cubs, and we had fun trying the experiments. Definitely a bonus for teaching grade school science!

***Many thanks to the Netgalley & Quarto Publishing for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

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Water is fascinating! And without its cycle, "all the land on Earth would be a giant desert!"
Ava and George are doing another great job as Geo Detectives! This time, they discover and explain the water cycle for us.
If you want to try some water experiments with your children, then read Geo Detectives: Water Cycle! If you want them to get some interesting facts about water, then read this book!
This book is going to be on the shelves as part of our homeschooling learning! It is suitable for all young scientists and those with curious minds.
Thank you to Net Galley and QEB Publishing for providing me with an e-book copy in exchange for my honest review!

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Great book for elementary classrooms. Language is easily understood. Pictures are simple. The experiments are adapted well to school of homeschool. Rooms.

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Good introduction to the water cycle with adorable art in every page. I love that they added an activity where you could download Google Earth as to explore the planet more.

The other activities are simple and some looks fun as the one where you could try to create clouds in a jar.

Overall, it was nice reading it and I'm glad they added they added some environmental awareness in there.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with the digital copy for an honest review.

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Thank you to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – QEB for The Water Cycle by Chris Oxlade and Anita Ganeri. In this book you follow Ava and George as they learn about the water cycle. Several experiments and activities are included that you can do to learn more as you read, including using Google Earth to look at different bodies of water, experiments with water vapor, and creating a cloud in a jar. You also learn about types of clouds, transpiration, water wheels, and precipitation.

There are GeoFacts spread throughout the facts with interesting facts. The illustrations are great and there are some actual pictures to show you what is being talked about. The end of the book includes a quiz to test you on what you read, a glossary, a list of websites you can use to learn more, and a parent/teacher section with more information.

The book presents a cute and interactive way to learn about the water cycle.

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I work a lot with children in my Library and I like to develope excercies where we read together but also do Experiments and learn new things together.

I liked this book because it has good Illustration,is written in a clear and easy language and it gives the kids the chance to participate and really get into the subject.

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The Water Cycle is a book from the Geo Detectives series. Having read another book in this series we were looking forward to getting started on this book! The book follows Ava and George as they discover and follow the journey of the water cycle and why it happens in the way it does.

This is a fantastic book to learn all about water, clouds, seas and rivers and how they all link in to the water cycle. Each of the pages throughout the book has a subtopic which the children get to see Ava and George exploring and getting involved in which is fun to see and gives a different perspective on the book. The speech bubbles of information are a fun way to include them in the story as it allows Ava and George to discuss things that might otherwise not have been mentioned. There is not a huge amount of writing on each page but that's perfect as it has all of the necessary information and so is not too overwhelming for the children.

The book is full of ideas for activities and experiments which I think are brilliant as it gives the children a new way to learn and experiment themselves which will be more meaningful for children who learn in that way and unlike other books the activities fit really well with the topic, some books seem to put activities in just for the sake of it but not these books! The questions at the back are fantastic for the children to think about what they've learnt and expand the topic by looking for information elsewhere which is fantastic at encouraging them to learn and research for themselves. There are a glossary of words which is always helpful and with the words being bold throughout the book it is very easy for the children to take a quick look without distracting them too much from the book.

The illustrations in the books are what really make the Geo Detective series so special, there are gorgeous coloured pictures with lots of details relating to the information which make it fun and enjoyable to learn. The photos in the books are also a nice touch to show the children what it really looks like and I like that there aren't too many of these as it makes it seem more like a story than learning.

This is a great book which is an enjoyable read for children and educational too, I hope there are more in the Geo Detective series in the future!

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Geo Detectives: Water Cycle is a new book aimed at younger readers in the Geo Detectives series. Released 17th Sep. 2019 by Quarto on their QEB imprint, it's 32 pages and available in hardback and paperback formats.

I've long been an advocate of STEAM education and books like this, which stimulate kids' natural interest in science and nature can be a fun and useful part of focusing that interest. Earth science is cool and this book provides an accessible and factual introduction to the water cycle as well as some other geo-science including the different types of clouds, some basic weather systems and beginning conservation ideas.

Each of the pages is full of colorful graphics with sidebars including some photographs along with explanatory text. There are short labs with exercises using safe and easily sourced materials to illustrate the theory. The DIY sections are short and do a good job of showing how fun and interesting science can be.

The geo detective narrators, Ava and George, are appealing and friendly. I liked the inclusiveness of having both girl and boy, as well as that Ava is a person of color. It's a subtle little bonus in a book that's scientifically and factually correct. The book includes a question quiz at the end as well as a glossary, links list for further reading, and some notes for resource people (primarily aimed at parents and teachers).

This would make a superlative school or home library book as well as a good support text for geo-science core units in a classroom setting.

Five stars, very well done.

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This was a cute book that my students loved! It was great to have a book that was enjoyable and educational for them, especially one geared towards science!

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This was my second exploration with the intrepid George and Ava. George and Ava are good company. They are curious and eager to learn. In this one, young scientists will learn a lot about the different forms of water, (solid, liquid, gas), as they perform experiments and learn geo facts. There is a quiz at the end so kids can see what they retained and also suggestions for additional resources for teachers. This series provides a wonderful way to learn science. Science becomes fun and curiosity is rewarded. Perfect!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Quarto for this book in exchange for an honest review.

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This series "Geo detectives" is very interesting for teachers but also for parents who want to answer their children's questions ! ^^

This volume gives precise but very clear explanations of the water cycle and all that composes it: the different types of water, the forms of water, the clouds or the treatment of wastewater.
With that, there are great experiences to make, whether at home or in class, to better understand.

The illustrations are simple and colorful, very attractive!

In short, a very good discovery with, in bonus, an ecological and of course educational message! ^^

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What a fantastic book for little scientists! My 7-year-old daughter is fascinated by science and nature, so she loved this book! I appreciated the fun illustrations and the way the book was formatted: with the geo explorers talking to the kids, facts off to the side, and also experiments peppered into the book. I love this series! Keep it up!

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A simple and colourful educational tool to teach children all about the water cycle. These big topics can be boring and confusing but the layout of this book was a thing but. It was easy to follow and colourful enough to keep the kids entertained while learning.

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I received an electronic ARC from Quarto Publishing Group through NetGalley.
The Geo Detectives explore the water cycle. Oxlade takes readers through an overview and then provides further information on each portion of the cycle.
Simple to follow illustrations and text provide needed information for elementary level readers. Oxlade uses a variety of styles - short paragraphs, bullets, captions, etc. - to present information.
The recommended experiments provide a hands on experience so readers see and feel what happens throughout the water cycle.
Further information provided for teachers and parents at the end of the book.
Terrific for class science experiments and family time.

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My older son loved this book. He is super excited to do the experiments and I was pleasantly surprised with how possible they are for our family. In the past I've had science books for the kids that required the parent to buy several obscure or expensive components. That was not the case with the Geo Detectives. Everything needed for the experiments was already in our house! Xander also loved the cute artwork and was excited to hear what Ava and George had to say on each page. The geo facts in the corners where interesting even to my husband and me. Over all I would definitely recommend this book.

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Again, I liked the efforts of the Geo Detectives and in this adventure they look at the Water Cycle.
These books are well written and cleverly illustrated.
The book introduces concepts and scientific terms which are well explained and re-enforced in the glossary at the back.
The idea is that these two characters get into the heart of science and geography to explore and explain the features and aspects of the water cycle.
Can’t fault the logic or the progression through this subject. Everything is covered interestingly, with clear teaching and practical experiments to support the learning.
Once more I slightly cringed at the hints for teachers which reads as patronising. If these ideas were posed to parents and adults then they would sit better with me.
Full of great ideas to expand the topic and websites to learn more and develop one’s interest. An excellent series made stronger with this book.

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Erratum:
In the back of the book, in a section labeled 'Notes for Teachers and Parents', I read in the second paragraph "How do the children think this might have effected the city?" which should have employed 'affected' rather than 'effected'. I'd recommend changing that before any teachers read it! It's much more effective, and not an affectation!

This was an amusingly-illustrated (by Morgan) and informatively-written (by Ganeri and Oxlade) book which discusses the water cycle, without which Earth would be a desert The book discusses, sometimes a bit repetitively, but repetition helps recollection, how water from the oceans evaporates and later precipitates over land as fresh water, which nourishes the soil and eventually flows back to the ocean via rivers, thereby completing the cycle.

The water cycle is a critical part of everyone's need for water, and access is becoming more stressed as the climate change grows worse and the rains come too harshly or not at all, and changing snowfall patterns leave less water to return to the rivers and ocean in spring. Lack of access to sufficient clean fresh water is looming as the number one crisis on our planet. As spoiled Americans each splash through 300 gallons a day in average, the poorer residents of, say, Chennai, in India, which is undergoing an appalling drought in 2019, have less than eight gallons per person per day.

Ava and George the 'geo-detectives' are our guides in this story, and are well-informed. Taking trips on boats and via airplane and even a parachute, and traveling from beach to mountain, they explore not only the cycle, but how water is abused and polluted. Until recently, Cape Town in South Africa was facing a zero water day in the near future: a day when there would be no fresh water for the city's population to use. This scared people so much that they began a serious conservation effort, and now they have put off zero day indefinitely.

There are eleven other major cities across the globe: Bangalore, Beijing, Cairo, Istanbul, Jakarta, London, Mexico, Miami, Moscow, São Paulo, and Tokyo which will face this crisis as well in the very near future if something isn't done - if water isn't valued as highly as it ought to be. This will occur during the lifetime of the children who might read this book, so any effort to educate them as to the vital importance of water is to be commended. This book as a worthy effort in that direction.

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I love reading Non fiction books and this looks set to become a popular series with children and schools studying The Water cycle and other popular topics and science units.

It is a clear and concise way to look at The Water Cycle, rain, clouds and rivers. There is so much to see and learn from this book.
I love the idea of children becoming Geo-Detectives and finding the answers to questions by doing activities and experiments. There are plenty of those to keep them busy and a great way to extend their learning.
I like the characters in the book- it makes it feel more like you are joining them on an adventure rather than learning about a specific thing. That will appeal to many children.

This book stands out from other Water Cycle books as you feel a part of the journey and story rather than reading facts in a specific order. The illustrations are excellent as well.

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