Our Pool

by Lucy Ruth Cummins, Lucy Ruth Cummins (Illustrator)

Overview

On a hot day, people come from all over the city to spend the day at the pool in this joyful picture book that’s a love song to summer, the city, community, and staying cool!

Today is a pool day in the city! The sun is shining, so what are you waiting for? Friends and family. Kids and grandparents. Big bodies and small bodies. Everybody is welcome at our pool! Get ready for swimming and splashing, zigzagging and dunking, and racing and laughing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534499232
Publisher:	Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	06/13/2023
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	143,218
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 10.20(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Lucy Ruth Cummins is an author, illustrator, and art director of children’s books. She was happily paired with Jean Reidy for both Truman, which was named a New York Times Best Children’s Book of 2019, and Sylvie. She is also the author-illustrator of Stumpkin, Vampenguin, Dalmartian: A Mars Rover’s Story, Our Pool, and A Hungry Lion, or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals. Lucy has swum in creeks, streams, gorges, rivers, swimming holes, pools (above- and in-ground), lakes (both Great and Finger), decorative fountains, and oceans. Her very favorite place to swim, however, is at her community pool in Brooklyn with her sons and her neighbors.

Lucy Ruth Cummins is an author, illustrator, and art director of children’s books. She was happily paired with Jean Reidy for both Truman, which was named a New York Times Best Children’s Book of 2019, and Sylvie. She is also the author-illustrator of Stumpkin, Vampenguin, Dalmartian: A Mars Rover’s Story, Our Pool, and A Hungry Lion, or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals. Lucy has swum in creeks, streams, gorges, rivers, swimming holes, pools (above- and in-ground), lakes (both Great and Finger), decorative fountains, and oceans. Her very favorite place to swim, however, is at her community pool in Brooklyn with her sons and her neighbors.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/17/2023

Public pools, those unsung heroes of public good, have found their bard in Cummins (Sleepy Sheepy). In vibrant gouache and colored pencil hues that are reminiscent of a schoolchild’s paint set, initial pages show a variously inclusive parade of city dwellers “sweating, and smiling, and skip-stepping toward... OUR POOL!” As the illustrations move over, around, and under the be-goggled crowd in compositions ranging from reportorial to bird’s-eye view, the story’s kid narrator enthusiastically recounts the ritual-like pleasures of pool-going, from getting changed to getting in (“I’m the JUMP-RIGHT-IN! type”) to breathless communal reactions over the sun’s movements to a final, parting cannonball. In a cleverly executed conceit, the first-person narrator is never tied to a specific individual: when Mom insists on sunscreen, Cummins zooms in on four adult hands brandishing bottles and cans; when the narrator floats behind Mom “like a cape,” readers see multiple parent-child pairs moving through the water in a line. It’s a joyfully saturated vision of e pluribus unum shown via “an ice-cold bowl of City People Soup!” Ages 4–8. Agent: Emily van Beek, Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management. (June)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2023-03-14
A child and their mother take a trip to the city pool on a hot day.

The sounds of clanking in the locker room, a pause to apply sunblock, the muffling of noises under the water—everything about this outing is thrilling. The young narrator (the tale is told in first person, although there’s no specific character identified as the narrator within the illustrations) notes that swimmers have various body and skin types (“even sunburned skin—OUCH!”), and everyone has different ways of entering the water—some make their way in slowly, one toe at a time, while others dive right in. Everyone swims or lounges in their preferred manner. They float, splash (pausing for the lifeguard’s whistle), flip, dive, and swim through legs like dolphins. For most of this, the swimmers are united (“I” switching to “we”), but never more so than when a cloud covers the sun, everyone waiting until the sun shines again, and there’s a collective cheer! The ritual of leaving is just as important—one more “CANNONBALL!” before everyone gets ice cream at a waiting truck. The merriment, beauty, and comforting routines of a pool day are on full display in this celebration of an urban summer tradition. Both the chatty, child-friendly text and the gouache, colored pencil, and digitally finished artwork ooze exuberance; Cummins’ saturated colors and energetic, curving waves are utterly inviting. The cast is racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Pure summer fun. (Picture book. 3-8)

Kirkus Reviews