River Stories

River stories by Timothy Knapman is an illustrated collection of facts and traditional folklore tales about five of the most well-known rivers that stretch across the continents of the world. From the Rhine in Germany and the Netherlands, to the Yangtze in Tibet and China; each river has been colourfully illustrated by Ashling Lindsay and Irene Montano.

What an incredible book! I absolutely loved the pull out pages that helped show the length of each river, and I am sure many others will too. Some children and adults lack the ability to visualise something that is new or unfamiliar and this book with its 'river length' illustrated pages makes that so much easier to do.

Along the length of each of these rivers are no end of interesting facts, written using clear concise language ensuring that each 'snippet' is a suitable hook for young reader. For example, in 2004 Martin Strel attempted to swim the Yangtze; he later admitted, if he had know just how powerful the river was, he would have never have started. While in 2013, Janet Moreland was the first American to kayak the length of the Mississippi; it took her seven and a half months!

This is the kind of book that you would be best enjoyed laid out on the floor, enabling its reader to crawl along the side of the extended pages soaking up the enormity of each river bank and its plethora of facts. The language used to introduce each river is high quality and inviting: 'Let's paddle down the river and hear its stories. There is magic in these murky waters and sometimes danger'; 'A droplet of water takes three months to journey from the cold lake to the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. On our journey, we'll discover stories of adventure and hardship, music and mystery, and a lost city from long ago'. What young reader couldn't help but be drawn into the magic of this text?

An absolutely brilliant way to persuade newly independent readers that non-fiction can be for pleasure and not just facts and figures for research or topic work! I really enjoyed looking through this book and even though it is a children's picture book, there were many interesting facts that I never knew. So definitely a book for young and old.

I think that River Stories is a book that many readers will go back to time and time again. However, that will not be so in my case, I know of two young readers who will most certainly claim this as theirs, as soon as lockdown is over! (April 2020, Covid 19)

Picture book / Ages 6-10 years / Reviewed by Sam Phillips, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 7+