'If I could give her anything, anything at all in all of the world to show how I love her, I'd give her the river.' These are the words spoken by a father as he contemplates the one gift he could give his beloved daughter that would come close to expressing his great love for her - a river. And this gift encompasses so much more than it seems to at first glance, for a river includes the grace of swans that glide across it, the energy of swallows that flit above it, the permanence of the stone steps that lead down into the water, the exuberance of a puppy that runs along its bank and the change and beauty of every season. Indeed the river is a gift of possibility, of beauty and of challenge. An exquisitely crafted father-to-daughter poem, luminously illustrated.

 

There are 32 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2004 by Simon & Schuster .

Wendell Minor is the illustrator of many award-winning picture books for children, including Robert Burleigh's Abraham Lincoln Comes Home , If You Spend a Day with Thoreau at Walden Pond and Edward Hopper Paints His World , as well as the New York Times-bestselling Reaching for the Moon by Buzz Aldrin. He lives in Washington, Connecticut.