Whenever Maya visits the river, the river jumps up to greet her. It cools her when the summer sun is too hot and holds her up when she dives in. It keeps her company in the quiet of winter. The river takes care of Maya and Maya takes care of the river. In this charming story about the wonders of nature presented in both English and Spanish, Maya Christina Gonzalez uses her remarkable talents as an artist and storyteller to inspire young readers to explore and protect the natural world around them (Source).
Resource Creator(s)
Maya Christina Gonzalez is an award-winning children’s book artist, author, activist and progressive educator. Maya’s work addresses systemic inequity in relation to race/ethnicity, sexism and cissexism using children’s books as radical agents of change and healing, both personally and culturally. Maya co-founded Reflection Press, a POC, queer and trans owned independent publishing house that uses holistic, nature-based, and anti-oppression frameworks in their books and materials for kids and grown-ups. Maya is also the creator of the Gender Wheel, a tool to express the dynamic, infinite and inclusive reality of gender, and provides lectures and workshops to educators, parents and caregivers (Source).
Sustainable World Collaborative’s Analysis
We analyzed each resource in our database based on the Ways of Thinking from the Sustainability Education Framework for Teachers. We select only high-rated resources to include in the database. Below are our ratings and notes for this resource.
Systems Thinking
This resource does a good job of enforcing the idea of working with interconnected systems, but it doesn’t present any relevant artifacts, exhibits, and minimal information.
Strategic Thinking
This resource does not directly contribute to long term planning guides and strategies, but it is a great starting point to show why we should care about our water systems. This book appreciates everything that water has to offer us, and in return, we should treat it kindly in response.
Values Thinking
This resource does a beautiful job of being culturally diverse and acknowledges stolen property, even though it is not directly stated in the story. It is clear that the author’s environmental concerns are shown through the book.
Futures Thinking
Although this resource does a good job of providing forward-thinking opportunities, it does not provide specific future goals and specific goals for what to do in the future. As mentioned before, it is simply a good setup to start talking about topics such as water pollution and sustainability as a whole.