Picture Books That Talk about Floods • Chitra Soundar

The recent hurricane in Texas and the floods in the Indian subcontinent, has made me thinking about how we talk about natural disasters to children.

My own picture book Pattan’s Pumpkin is a flood story too – and it talks about how Pattan had to make a boat from a giant pumpkin to escape the floods in the valley in they lived.

So I went to look about other picture books handle the traumatic concepts of  floods and its effects for children.

Here are the ones I found – perhaps of use to you in your classrooms to discuss the topic that must be on children’s minds.

Flood by Alvaro F. Villa 

This is a wordless picture book – it shows the preparation of a family of an impending storm and how they evacuate and their house gets flooded. It also shows how the family pull together on their return to restore their house to order and life resumes. It is a wonderful way to bring out conversations in classrooms – be it in younger ages or older.

Flood by Gillian McClure

In this book the victims are three friend – an ox, a fox and a hen. They are caught up in a flood and they need to work together to reach land.

In contrast, The Bobbling and the Flood is a comic take on what do with a flood. Bobbling Poodle Doodle wants to clear the flood by finding the plughole. The result is hilarious though.

Frog is a Hero is a digital edition from Andersen in which we find out about how Frog saves his friends when the river bursts its banks.

 

And finally one of my favourites – Elmer and the Flood in which Elma has to rescue a young stranded elephant when the forest is flooded due to heavy rains.

These five titles will trigger conversations about what happens during a flood, how do we prepare for them and how to deal with the aftermaths. Children will be able to relate to, empathise and talk about families across the world caught up in such disasters.

Do you know of other books you can recommend?

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Find out more about Chitra Soundar at www.chitrasoundar.com or Follow her on Twitter @csoundar