Here is the Wetland

Web of Life #6

by Madeleine Dunphy

Luminously detailed paintings convey the fragile beauty and complexity of a fascinating and critically important environment. Today's ecoconscious youngsters will be dazzled by this intriguing and informative look at the murky, moist world known as the wetland. Full color.

Genres: Science, Nature

32 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

Madeleine Dunphy’s books have been published by Hyperion Books for Children, Millbrook Press, and her own publishing company, Web of Life Children’s Books—a publishing company devoted to publishing picture books about the environment. Madeleine is also a teacher, activist and mother.

Madeleine has taught special programs at the California Academy of Sciences, Lawrence Hall of Science, Museum of Children’s Art and at dozens of elementary schools in northern California and abroad. She has a BA in anthropology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a MA in education from Mills College.

Madeleine has traveled extensively to research her various books. Her travels include visiting the mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, camping out in the Amazon rain forest in Peru, visiting Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and scuba diving with sea turtles in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Madeleine lives in Oakland, California with her husband, daughter, dog, two cats and a hamster.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of several nonfiction books about different biomes, Here Is the Wetland builds on the same structure as "The House That Jack Built," as a new plant or animal enters on each page to interact with the others in the wetland. It teaches about the food chain and the interrelatedness of life in the process. The repetition is fun and helps the child reader remember the names of any new animals or plants. At times the poem constructions are less than poetic and rolled awkwardly off my tongue as I read aloud, but the realistic illustrations combined with the accurate information about nature make it a worthwhile nonfiction science book for younger elementary school students. Other books in the series have an identical format and cover Antarctica, a coral reef, the tropical rain forest, and more.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This non-fiction cumulative tale was a great introduction for my students to the concept of a wetland. We visit a wetland near our school on a regular basis, but the children (and the school community) call it "the meadow." Wayne McLoughlin's illustrations were beautiful, and we're lucky enough that in our wetland we have water (obviously), cattails, herons, frogs, red-winged blackbirds, and bulrushes, so the text gave the children richer scientific understanding of their beloved play place. At times the level of the language was above the "just right" zone for my students (3-5 year olds), but the images are engrossing enough to hold them and they could join in on the "Here in the wetland" refrain on each page.

[Tanya Wadley · Rating 5 out of 5]

We had this book for the longest time before we finally read it. But I loved it... it's calming peaceful verse repeats with an addition on every page.

It would be fun to try to write a poem in this format... and a great creative writing activity for children.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The illustrations and poetry (in the manner of This is the House that Jack Built) are really beautiful. Nice nice book.

[Shawn Elswick]

This book describes a wetland and the things that are in it. I didnt like this book as much as I did the others, but it was still good. Still had a solid plot.