Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 18 -- Picture Books
Splash and Trickle, A Conservation Story, The Adventures of Two
Raindrops (1968) by Ivan Green and Bill Connor describes the
Big Adventure of two raindrops. Splash becomes engulfed in a
flood.
Tickle and thousands of other raindrops had joined together for
become a little stream, running through the roots and soil
underground. He had not traveled far before he found the river.
Slowly and quietly they all moved on together, through the cool
dark earth. Then after days and weeks of the quiet traveling
they saw sunlight again.
The sequence is explicit: Trickle joins an underground stream
Which joins a river
Which later reaches daylight.
The adventure's fine; the hydrology is not.
The the text-free Rooster's Revenge (2011) by
Beatrice Rodriguez portrays Rooster's sail over
the sea into a strange cave with a mysterious
glowing ball.
McElligot's Pool (1947, long before The Cat in the Hat) by Dr. Seuss contrasts the sour
pessimism of an adult farmer and the unboundedly optimistic dangling boy his fishing line into a
small water-filled crack in the earth.
You're sort of a fool!
You'll never catch fish in McElligot's Pool!
The youngster takes that as a challenge to keep
doing what they are doing, and this one certainly did.
This pool might be bigger than you or I know!
Perhaps it connects underground all the way to the
sea and contains many dog fish, catfish, or "even a
fish made of strawberry jelly" not to mention one with
a pinwheel-like tail and another with fins like a sail.
The book's core is a series of fantastic fish, each
more remarkable than the last.
Having thought about all of these fish, the boy ponders,
There might be a pool, like I've read of in books,
Connected to one of those underground brooks.
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