Atheneum Books for Young Readers | 978-1534497467
” … from the moment I open my eyes I can tell it’s a Pool Day.”
I didn’t grow up with a pool nearby but, for a few years, we lived next-door to neighbors who had recently built a pool in their backyard.
Whenever my sisters and I heard splashing at their house, we’d run to the wide clearing between the trees that separated our homes and look longingly towards their yard, hoping for an invitation…
CLICK TO ENLARGE © Words and illustrations by Lucy Ruth Cummins
OUR POOL, written and illustrated by Lucy Ruth Cummins, brought me back to Springwood Path and the joy of jumping in the neighbor’s pool on a hot, humid day.
CLICK TO ENLARGE © Words and illustrations by Lucy Ruth Cummins
“You can feel TALL
in the shallow end.
And OH-SO-SHORT
in the deep end…
We “Marco!”
And we “Polo!”…
We make our way from wall
to wall underwater or on the
surface, racing, laughing, and
hand-over-hand edge-bracing.
Do your memories of swimming include jumping in a neighbor’s pool like mine do? Or maybe yours are about the excitement of heading off to a community pool where people are swimming “in every direction. Breaststrokers, backstrokers. Butterfliers and doggie-paddlers.”
Either way, it’s a day full of games and snacks and flips and handstands and one final CANNONBALL! And then, tired and happy (and maybe, even, hungry again) it’s time to dry off, and head home, basking in the glow of a good time at the POOL.
Summer is soon coming to a close and some kids have already headed back to school. But the weather is still warm in many places, and even if you can’t jump in the pool any time soon, you can pick up a copy of OUR POOL from your local library or bookstore and enjoy revisiting some of your best summertime memories.
***
Pair OUR POOL with:
- WHEN YOU CAN SWIM by Jack Wong
- JABARI JUMPS by Gaia Cornwal
- LEO CAN SWIM by Anna McQuinn, illustrated by Ruth Hearson
