small s p a r kling
Raindrop
with a GIANT fold-out
by Mary Auld
illustrations by Lou Baker Smith
START SMALL, THIN K BIG
small s p a r kling Raindrop
by
Mary Auld
consultant
Dr. Nicholas Souter, Conservation
International illustrations by Lou
Baker Smith
I am a small sparkling raindrop—the first to fall from my cloud. I am made of water. Thousands of other raindrops will fall with me. Together, we are rain.
Water is a clear liquid. In small quantities, it forms a drop.
Raindrops form in clouds. When they get big and heavy enough, they fall to the ground. Rainwater is fresh and clean.
Here is where I land on the earth. My weight starts me rolling downward. It is the start of my journey to the sea.
Some raindrops soak into the ground, helping plants to grow.
Animals drink some raindrops.
Some raindrops pool together to form puddles.
I join with other raindrops as I roll downhill. I get bigger and heavier.
Look! I have rolled into a stream. I race down the mountainside, splashing around rocks and tumbling over waterfalls.
As water rolls downhill, it comes together into streams. The running water wears away (erodes) the land, creating gullies and rocky banks.
Some rocks wear away faster than others. The water flows around them.
Waterfalls form when the stream erodes softer rock back to a ridge of hard rock. The water falls over it.
More streams join mine to make a river. It flows through a wet and steamy rainforest.
These mountains are in a tropical region. Lots of rain falls and it is hot.
Thick rainforest grows in this steamy habitat.
Plants grow quickly here. Mosses and ferns grow right on the edge of the water.
Animals like it here because there is plenty to eat and drink.
Here is the Mekong, one of Earth’s great rivers. My smaller river runs into it. I mix with water drops from many other hills and mountains.
Along much of the Mekong, there are two seasons—one dry and one wet. The river floods after the heavy rains of the wet season.
My river is powerful. Its water carves out a valley and channels on its journey to the ocean.
A smaller river often flows into a larger river. It is called a tributary.
The point where two rivers meet is called a confluence.
A river delta is named after delta, a letter from the Greek alphabet, written like this: Δ. On a map, the river’s channels form a delta shape.
People build dams across powerful rivers. The fast-flowing water makes electricity by turning turbines inside the dam.
This electricity is renewable energy. It helps people, but dams can damage the river downstream.
OX BOW LAKE
MEANDER
TRIBUTARY
DELTA
FLOODPLAIN
OCEAN
Here is my river flowing slowly over a wide, flat valley. It is huge now—over a half mile wide. It has great bends and even islands. When a river reaches flatter ground, it slows down and spreads out.
The water carries lots of sandy silt. Where the river flows very slowly, the silt drops from the water. Over time, this makes large bends and islands.
The river is full of life—and so are the banks alongside it. Each little drop of water like me helps things live and
grow, from plants to people!
Lots of different fish live in rivers. The Mekong has more than 1,100 different types. The fish provide food for dolphins, turtles, birds, and humans.
All life is adapted to the way the river floods each year.
People live and farm by the rivers, using the water. Some villages grow into towns or cities.
Look at me now! I am one of billions of raindrops flowing through the Mekong Delta.
I am nearing the sea.
As some rivers reach the sea, they drop more silt and form more islands. The river branches out around these to form a delta.
Crops grow well in the rich and fertile soil. Farmers grow rice in flooded paddy fields.
Here is a floating market. The farmers of the Delta come here to sell their rice and other crops to the city people.
People grow so much rice in the Mekong Delta it is known as ”the rice bowl“ of Southeast Asia.
The Delta land often floods with the seasonal rains, so many homes are built on stilts to allow for this.
Climate change threatens delta areas. Rising sea levels could flood low-lying delta lands forever.
As I flow out into the sea, I become a drop of salty seawater. I will be carried far away by ocean currents.
Sea animals and plants are adapted to live in salty water.
Rivers are made from fresh rainwater, but salt from the land dissolves in this water as it flows. All this salt collects in the seas and oceans making them salty.
Changing water temperatures mean water in the oceans is always on the move. Warm water flowing into colder water pushes cold water into warmer water creating powerful currents of moving seawater.
I have traveled over 1,000 miles from where I fell in the Annamite Mountains to the South China Sea.
The Mekong is the twelfth longest river in the world. It starts in the Himalayas, the highest mountain range in the world.
the Himalayas to China and
The Mekong flows through six countries on its way to the sea, a journey of over 2,700 miles. In China it is called Lancang.
Some rivers from the rainforests of the Annamite Mountains run into the Mekong.
Mekong River
ASIA
EUROPE
AFRICA
MYANMAR
CAMBODIA
VIETNAM Annamite Mountains
THAILAND
LAOS
Bangkok
Phnom Penh
Ho Chi Minh City
Vientiane
Hanoi
GULF OF THAILAND
Here is the wind blowing across the sea. Look at the sails of the boats full of air.
The blanket of air that surrounds Earth is called its atmosphere.
Changing temperatures cause air to move around Earth, just like water moves around the oceans.
Moving air makes the wind. It can be gentle or strong.
The sun shines down and I change again. This time I become water vapor. You cannot see me. I become part of the air.
Water moves around Earth in the air as well as in rivers and the sea. It changes, or evaporates, from a liquid to a gas called water vapor.
The way water moves and changes all the time helps make our weather.
Water can evaporate just about anywhere, but it happens faster when there is wind, warmth, and a big area of water (like the ocean).
I have changed again. Look inside this cloud. I am an ice crystal now!
Air has water vapor in it, but it also has tiny specks of dust.
If air rises, as it does over mountains, it cools and the water freezes into ice around the dust particles. These ice crystals come together to form clouds.
Some clouds form high up in the atmosphere, others lower down.
Cirrus
Altostratus
There are different types of cloud. When the wind moves us around, we change shape and join together.
Ice crystals connect and get bigger, too. If they get heavy enough, they fall to the ground as precipitation— the name we give to water that falls from clouds.
I
am about to fall, but will it be as rain, hail, sleet, or snow?
SNOW
Ice crystals connect to form snowflakes. If it is cold, they fall as snow.
RAIN
When it is warmer, they melt as they fall to form rain.
SLEET
Sleet falls when snowflakes melt close to the ground.
HAIL
Falling rain may be blown back up high again. It freezes into balls of ice and falls to the ground as hail.
Cirrocumulus high and patterned
Altocumulus mid-level, broken, and fluffy
Nimbostratus low, dark, and steady rain
Stratus low and flat
Here I am a fresh, sparkling raindrop again. I am falling far away from where I fell before. I bring life-giving water to another place on Earth.
Water may travel great distances through the atmosphere as vapor and in clouds.
Water that evaporates from the Pacific Ocean may eventually fall as rain over Africa.
This
time I flow through a stream and a river into a reservoir. Here people store the fresh water they need to live.
A reservoir is a store of water. Sometimes, reservoirs form naturally as lakes or underground. Sometimes people make them by building dams.
open
We also need fresh water to make our crops grow and to use in our factories.
Here I am in a glass of water. Someone will drink me, and I will pass through their body. Before too long, I will be up in the clouds again. Who knows where I will end up?
Your body uses water to work but passes what it doesn’t need as pee. This and other wastewater goes through pipes to places to be cleaned.
The clean fresh water goes back into the system to be used again or it goes back into rivers.
I am a precious, sparkling drop of water. I am part of the water cycle that carries on forever.
The water cycle is the name we give to the way water moves around Earth, in the atmosphere, on land, and in the oceans.
The water cycle cleans water naturally so it can be used again and again.
Next time you drink a glass of water think about me and all the little raindrops that fall from the sky and create mighty rivers. Water gives life to our Earth.
16in x16in fold-out
START SMALL...
This is the journey that starts with a small, sparkling drop of water and becomes part of Earth’s water cycle. As long as there is water on Earth, its cycle will never stop.
raindrops become part of a stream streams join to become
raindrops fall from a cloud
THEWATERCYCLE
water vapor water evaporates to become vapor (this can be from land or sea)
ANIMAL I-SPY
Find these animals somewhere in the book. Do they live in the river, the sea, or on land? river a small river flows into a big one sea a river flows into the sea (or a lake)
precipitation sometimes water falls as snow, sleet, or rain
going underground some water sinks into the earth to form underground rivers or lakes
THINK BIG!
BLUE PLANET
Almost three-quarters of Earth’s surface is covered with water. This makes it look blue from space. But most of this is seawater. Only a tiny bit of this (3 percent) is fresh water.
ANCIENT WATER
The water cycle means water is not lost, just moved somewhere else on Earth. This means the water we use can be over 4 billion years old, far older even than the dinosaurs.
LOCKED UP WATER
Most fresh water is locked up in the ice caps at the Poles or deep under the ground. Only 0.3 percent of the fresh water is available for plants, humans, animals, and other living things to use.
WATER FOR LIFE
Life could not exist without water— it is found in all life-forms. Over half of the human body is water. Around half of a tree is water.
clouds water vapor high in the air condenses and freezes to form clouds
raindrops water particles get so big, they fall as small sparkling raindrops
THE GREAT RIVERS OF THE WORLD
Here are many of Earth’s great rivers. The Nile River in Africa is the longest on Earth at 4,132 miles long. The Amazon River of South America is second at 4,000 miles. The Mekong comes twelfth, but is second only to the Amazon in the number of different fish species (over 1,100) it gives a home to. It is an important habitat and needs protecting.
Irrawaddy
small s p a rkling
This story starts with a small sparkling raindrop falling from a cloud. It has fallen to Earth many times before in a never-ending cycle. Read about its journey from mountain stream to the Mekong River and out into the sea, before it takes to the air again. This story ends with a giant fold-out.
Unfold a world of discovery with this series that takes readers from the small and familiar to new areas of knowledge where you really have to think big.
Small Sparkling Raindrop This edition published in 2025 by Red Comet Press, LLC, Brooklyn, NY