ALA Booklist

Some people say that I am one thing. / Others say that I am many. / Ever since the world began / I have been moving in an endless circle . . . I am the rain. So begins the text of this unusual introduction to the water cycle. The book features a free-verse narrative illustrated by landscape and seascape paintings that show water in various forms referred to in the text: I am the waterfall, I am the clouds, or I am the thunderhead. At the end of the book each picture appears in miniature accompanied by a paragraph explaining that particular phase of the water cycle. Those attracted to Locker's handsome artwork will find many beautiful and dramatic paintings here. Teachers may want to try this as a different approach to the water cycle. Although CIP places the book in the fiction collection, librarians may find it more useful in nonfiction collections, whether science or poetry, or shelved with Locker's other picture books. (Reviewed March 1, 1997)

Horn Book

Beautifully painted landscapes illustrate the various steps in the water cycle--from rain, through rivers, and into the sea and sky. Each is accompanied by rather overly dramatic poetic descriptions of the forms water takes on earth. More detailed scientific information about the water in the illustrations is found at the back of the book.

Kirkus Reviews

Water in its many guises and the scientific process that commands the shape it takes—liquid, solid, and gas—are the subjects of this collection of paintings. A first-person narration covers the journey of water on its circular path, as streams, rivers, and oceans evaporate into fog and clouds, only to return to earth as rain: ``I am one thing./I am many things./I am water./This is my dance through our world.'' Of most interest but relegated to the back of the book are endnotes by Candace Christiansen (with Locker, Sky Tree, 1995) explaining scene-by-scene the various phenomena the painter's brush has recorded, e.g., a brilliant scarlet sunset is the result of low-angled sunlight passing through layers of water vapor. Locker's paintings and text are poetic, but both have a languid, slightly static quality to them. Unlike Sky Tree, in which science facts were incorporated into the body of the text, the paintings don't illustrate the text in any true sense, but sit on the page. (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-10)"

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Some people say that I am one thing./ Others say that I am many."""" In this poetic soliloquy, water proclaims its many manifestations as it courses through its never-ending cycle: """"In white-silver veils I rise"""" as mist; """"I float,"""" """"I drift"""" as clouds; """"I rise up as gleaming power-filled towers"""" as a thunderhead; """"I am still and deep"""" as a lake. Locker's (Where the River Begins) traditional landscapes and seascapes illuminate natural splendors with the same serenity and awe found in his previous books; once again, his painterly style makes no concessions to children. A supplement by Candace Christiansen adds scientific explanations of the water cycle and its relationship to wind, weather and atmospheric phenomena. While the rather dense appendix can help adults and older children to understand the changes portrayed, hard information about the hydrologic cycle strikes a discordant note after the simple, poetic text and the landscapes questing after the sublime. Ages 4-10. (Mar.)