School Library Journal Starred Review

Gr 4-6 Mulder's latest addition to her solid repertoire of environmentally conscious books addresses the crises (pollution, shortages, etc.) of the global water supply. Her conversational style keeps the material from being too clinical or gloom-and-doom, without ever seeming superficial. Ideal for reports, the book is packed with great information on everything from the way civilizations have collected and used water throughout history, sobering assessments of the present and future availability of clean water, and intriguing solutions already employed, such as fog catchers, or that are still in their experimental stages. Worthwhile factoids, sidebars, and interesting photographs accompanied by instructive captions add to the abundance of meaningful material. Mulder is honest about the emergency unfolding around this precious resource, and though the situation is fairly dire, she empowers her readers by offering feasible suggestions that individuals can use to improve things. And like raindrops falling into a collection barrel, each and every single conscientious action adds up. An excellent resource on the topic.— Alyson Low, Fayetteville Public Library, AR

ALA Booklist

As with her previous titles about sustainable transportation and energy, Mulder begins this book by relating her personal experience with the topic, including a severe illness after drinking contaminated water in Peru. She then looks at the management of clean water and sewage throughout history, from the earliest wells in Cyprus to the Minoans' first flush toilets (unfortunately forgotten when they were conquered by the Mycenaeans). Other loosely related chapters examine how clean water is delivered to North American homes; natural ways, such as wetlands, that the environment cleans water; and global innovations to collect fresh water and remove microbes, poisons, and salt. Young people will be amazed by the global initiatives: filtering arsenic-contaminated water in Bangladesh with iron nails, harvesting fog to gather fresh water in Chile, and more. Catchy "Go with the Flow" headings, startling water facts, and color photos of children collecting and conserving water around the world make this high-interest reading.

Horn Book

Divided into four chapters, this book explores the history of water use by humans; the natural cycle of water on earth; how people access, clean, and desalinate water; and ways in which we can conserve and preserve our water resources. Plenty of well-captioned photos, including some from the author's own travels, illustrate and personalize the accessible text. Reading list, websites. Ind.

Kirkus Reviews

You turn a tap. The water flows: clean and, if not abundantly, at least steadily. You are the lucky one in two humans. Mulder's book will make readers stop and calculate. Not only does half the world's population not have a ready water supply, but often what they do have is filthy—perhaps contaminated with microbes and arsenic—or plain poisonous. This account is particularly handy, as it goes back to the beginning, to the water cycle and the humans harvesting water: how it has been collected and distributed throughout history. The great Middle Eastern and European aqueducts, the deep wells, dew nets—truly feats of engineering marvel. It moves through the Middle Ages and, with them, the real start of water contamination and the spread of water-borne disease. Lavishly illustrated with everything from woodcuts to photographs, the book is far from downbeat and scolding. Much is being done to source and purify water, and much is also being done to work on the sanitation issue. Mulder writes with a clean, no-nonsense style that demonstrates that people have finally come around to realizing that only 1 percent of the water on Earth is potable and we must be careful of this resource. Informative, attractive and alarming—readers will think twice before leaving the water running as they brush their teeth. (Nonfiction. 8-12)

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

Writing with candor as well as some humor, Mulder gently urges readers who live in the developed world to never take fresh water for granted in this addition to the Orca Footprint ecology series. Chapters focus on the history of human efforts to harness and clean water, the water cycle, and how world nations have found innovative methods to access water (for example, in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, families remove the salt from their water using desalinating devices run on sunlight). Photographs of individuals from around the world collecting and using water put the topic in vivid focus, as do statistics that note that one in six people -don-t have access to clean water. Almost half of those people live in Africa.- Ages 8-12. (Apr.)