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Description
Monika Vaicenavičienė’s lush picture book What is a River? nudges us to contemplate our interconnection with living things and natural cycles, and with human history and culture. It relates a conversation between a grandmother and a young adult grandchild enjoying a picnic on a riverbank. Noticing that the river’s surface reflection of trees and flowers along its banks hides its lower depths (“Just like people”), the grandchild asks, “Grandma, what is a river?” The grandmother’s many responses do more than help her grandchild appreciate multiple meanings and values of rivers; they demonstrate how interesting some things become if we keep asking, “Is there anything else going on here?” or, in the grandmother's language, "What else is a river?”
Publication Date
2025
Publisher
Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children
City
Montclair
Keywords
environmental education, nature, philosophy for children, pollution, rivers, wisdom
Disciplines
Early Childhood Education | Education | Philosophy
Recommended Citation
Gregory, Maughn Rollins, "What is a River? (2021) by Monika Vaicenavičiene" (2025). Picture Books. 40.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/iapc_thinkingstories_picturebooks/40