Over and Under the Pond

Over and Under the Pond

by Kate Messner
illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal

On a paddling journey, a young boy and his mother discover the plants and animals that call the pond their home.

My family and I stumbled upon this story when a hike through a local wooded trail turned out to be a neighborhood story walk. This was not our first story walk and my children were excited to read the new (to us) book. My husband was surprised to learn that dragonfly larvae live underwater. My seven-year-old loved this book because "she learned what different animals ate".

Overall, the book was a cute way to educate young readers on some of the plant and animal life found in a pond. Many of the organisms were those found near us, so we were familiar with them. However, although the facts were interesting, the pages didn't always feel like they flowed together to create a story. Even two facing pages sometimes felt disjointed. I would have liked to see a little more connection between the facts.

That brings me to my only major criticism of this book. While there is a lot of information, I didn't really feel much of a story. The book is about a mother and child paddling through the pond and, while the child does occasionally ask questions, we don't really see much emotion. He doesn't startle at things jumping out of the water or gasp at a beautiful sight. He doesn't ask any follow-up questions or share any musings. With a set up like this, I would have liked to have seen a little more of the story about the mother and son and the exploration, not just a bunch of facts about organisms living in the pond. (Don't get me wrong. I think the facts were well-done. I just felt there could have been more of a storyline to weave them all together.)

Another (small) issue we had was that for some reason, both my husband and I, who were taking turns reading the story aloud, kept trying to fit the story into some type of rhyming meter. However, this book does not possess any. While it's not required that it should, there was something about the layout that made us want to use that meter, even well into the book when we had already realized there was none. However, that did not make us enjoy the story any less.

Overall, I would rate this story four quills and place it on my middle shelf.