Where the Water Begins refers to the origin, the root, the remembering of the incident itself while understanding the fluidity of memory. Where the water begins asks where we started, where we first learned about loss, where we inherited our grieving processes from, where our forefathers and foremothers learned from, and what we may unconsciously carry in the currents of our blood. Who were you before this troubling event? What within the core of you changed? If you could go back to the root, would you? Or, is your memory of your past self also inaccurate, fluid, making you homesick for a time that never exists, for a you that never was? I have known water to be a mysterious thing-full of peace or death, life or danger. In Where the Water Begins, Kimberly Casey enters, deliberately and with unquestionable poetic skill, into that uncertainty, that life-giving and taking body. These poems are delicate in their sight and sound, and they hold multitudes of pain, memory, and the way in which the self can always find itself, even in the wash of waves. It is an incredible book, one which takes the reader to her own ocean's bottom and up toward the air which waits above the water's edge. It is a prayer of a book, it is a wrestling which ends in release. Ashley M. Jones, author of REPARATIONS NOW! Bearing witness to generational trauma and survival, Kimberly Casey's debut collection asks, "What in our blood begs us to drown ourselves?" With tenderness and honesty, these poems reveal our most human scars - those of the flesh and those of the spirit, the accidental and self-inflicted. When you discover part of yourself reflected in Where the Water Begins, honor that wavering image, "[p]raise it for its resilience. Kiss [its] palms." Emari DiGiorgio, author of Girl Torpedo In this aptly titled collection, a body of griefs comes to life slowly, slowly, unfurling throughout the pages as quietly as it can, taking the reader by surprise. Here, is a body filled with water, a body filled with scars, a body filled with water-memories, a body filled with deaths it keeps churning and churning upon itself, as if these remembrances will keep the lives lost, and itself, breathing, breathing. There is strength in such brokenness, it seems to say, and the poet does a stunning job of rebuilding it brick by brick, bone by bone, a tender care weaved throughout, as if to say, there is no salvation here, but there is home. And home is riddled with new griefs. Whether the poems are talking about familial relations, or pulling memories out of their graves, or counting the deaths of loved ones, they beckon us with difficult questions; through their tenderness, we are enshrouded with care too, and, suddenly, we find ourselves unspooling too - with this poet, we are reminded that what was once broken, can be mended, slowly, slowly. This is indeed a stunning, stunning collection. Mahtem Shiferraw, author of Your Body is War

This classroom resource provides clear, concise scientific information in an understandable and enjoyable way about water and aquatic life. Spanning the hydrologic cycle from rain to watersheds, aquifers to springs, rivers to estuaries, ample illustrations promote understanding of important concepts and clarify major ideas. Aquatic science is covered comprehensively, with relevant principles of chemistry, physics, geology, geography, ecology, and biology included throughout the text. Emphasizing water sustainability and conservation, the book tells us what we can do personally to conserve for the future and presents job and volunteer opportunities in the hope that some students will pursue careers in aquatic science. Texas Aquatic Science, originally developed as part of a multi-faceted education project for middle and high school students, can also be used at the college level for non-science majors, in the home-school environment, and by anyone who educates kids about nature and water. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.

The New York Times bestseller A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about two eleven-year-olds in Sudan, a girl in 2008 and a boy in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours' walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the "lost boys" of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya's in an astonishing and moving way.

“Wonderfully written…Mr. Owen writes about water, but in these polarized times the lessons he shares spill into other arenas. The world of water rights and wrongs along the Colorado River offers hope for other problems.” —Wall Street Journal An eye-opening account of where our water comes from and where it all goes. The Colorado River is an essential resource for a surprisingly large part of the United States, and every gallon that flows down it is owned or claimed by someone. David Owen traces all that water from the Colorado’s headwaters to its parched terminus, once a verdant wetland but now a million-acre desert. He takes readers on an adventure downriver, along a labyrinth of waterways, reservoirs, power plants, farms, fracking sites, ghost towns, and RV parks, to the spot near the U.S.–Mexico border where the river runs dry. Water problems in the western United States can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: just turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, cut down the almond trees, and kill all the lawyers. But a closer look reveals a vast man-made ecosystem that is far more complex and more interesting than the headlines let on. The story Owen tells in Where the Water Goes is crucial to our future: how a patchwork of engineering marvels, byzantine legal agreements, aging infrastructure, and neighborly cooperation enables life to flourish in the desert—and the disastrous consequences we face when any part of this tenuous system fails.