A river of dust: The life-giving link between North Africa and the Amazon by Jilanne Hoffmann, illustrated by Eugenia Mello

This beautiful book is a unique look at an evolving scientific concept and definitely stands out among informational and nonfiction picture books which tend not to feature a lot of earth science.

The opening spread is covered with broad strokes of green and brown, bisected by a swathe of blue and splashed with yellow and orange. Poetic language personifies two great continents, and then dives from the huge continents to a stream of white dust particles, swirling across an orange desert in North Africa. It streams past women carrying water jars, through a leaping herd of gazelle, over a great river that glows red in the light of a setting sun against the dark green of the land.

The color scheme shifts to the bright blues of the coast and the deep blues of the ocean. A whale leaps in a froth of foam and dust, and finally it drifts across the jungle, reflecting the colors of the rainbow from a flock of brilliant macaws. It filters through the trees, where people paddle their canoes down the Amazon through a lush forest, sparkling like stars in the night sky, filtering over a land that is all shades of green, from the trees to the river.

The symbolic language of the story is explained in depth in extensive back matter. This covers continental drift, how minerals and nutrients are blown across oceans by the winds, and the ongoing science around climate and the transfer of dust from the African to the American continent and its effect on the biome.

This is not a typical storytime read-aloud, but it's perfect for several specific classroom and program uses. It will work very well with discussions of weather and geology, and could be used with younger children with sand art or stories about wind, although they may not sit still for the abstract art and text.

Verdict: I will be using this with my nonfiction book club and recommending it as a class read-aloud and for an after-school group who always does a unit on geology and geography. I have a number of homeschooling families who will be very interested in it, and I'd also like to use it to explore some painting techniques. It probably won't be for every library, but it definitely fills a niche for me.

ISBN: 9781797211756; Published July 2023 by Chronicle; Borrowed from another library in my consortium; Added to my library's ordering list