Sandy Brehl's Reviews > Puddle Song

One glance at that cover calls to mind the splish-splash nature of spring, especially in the midwest. These days, weather extremes offer rainy-day experiences across the country. Heavy rains may even be frightening to small ones. A book like this is exactly the joyful, glistening, imagination-sparking story that might restore impulsive puddle-jumping memories to childhood lives.
Salas is a brilliant wordsmith, rhymer, and image-evoker, whose lines in this short text assume the voice of the puddle. With a call out to those children, to ALL children, to the child in all of us, puddle calls for boots, stompers, jumpers. Puddle celebrates the potential for dancing, floating, and sloshing in every creature, with a final spread that settles its 'silver skin" into ripples in a breeze.

With no images at all, this short verse sings like the loveliest of lyrics, as the title suggests. When portrayed in subdued rainbow colors, from charming perspective shifts, and with reflective light effectively transforming water into magic on every page, the text soars. Young readers will be begging for rain, and boots, and puddles, but will savor the vicarious experience in these pages when those are not on hand.