FOLLOW THE WATER!

A 60-page illustrated book about where your water comes from, what lives in it, and who gets it

Follow the Water! is a nonfiction book for middle-grade readers about watersheds, the life inside them, and the question of who gets clean water and who doesn't. Written and illustrated by Sarin Singhal, founder of The Ripple Effect.

Read it below. Free, no download needed.

What's In It

1. What is a Watershed?
The starting idea, that every person lives inside a watershed whether they know it or not, and that water is always on its way somewhere. Readers learn to trace the path from rain to stream to river, and to find the one they live in.

2. Life in the Watershed
What lives in a healthy stream, from insects to fish to the plants along the bank, and why their presence or absence is one of the clearest signals of what the water is carrying.

3. Testing the Waters
How water quality is actually measured. What scientists look for, what the numbers mean, and why a stream that looks clean isn't always clean.

4. Watersheds and Us
The part most children's books skip. Not everyone gets the same clean, safe water. The neighborhoods with the least money and the least political voice usually get the worst of it, and the people living there did nothing to deserve it. This is where the book names water justice and explains it in terms a young reader can hold onto.

5. Go See for Yourself
Where to go and what to look for, written so a reader can close the book and walk outside. Streams, storm drains, and the ordinary places water passes through without anyone noticing.

6. Your Turn
What a reader can actually do, at home, at school, and in their own watershed.

Who It's For

Written for readers roughly ages 8 to 12, and usable by a parent reading with a younger child. Teachers can pull single chapters, since each part stands on its own.

Why It's About NJ

Most children's books about water are set nowhere in particular, which makes water a topic rather than a place. This one profiles New Jersey watersheds specifically, so a reader can close the book, walk outside, and find the water it was describing. That's also the point of Part 5.

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The Ripple Effect is a program of Starting Ripples Corp., a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit © 2026 Starting Ripples Corp.