I was unfortunately a little disappointed with oversized nonfiction picture book I Am Wind: An Autobiography by Rachel Poliquin (illustrated by Rachel Wada; Tundra, 2024). As the title indicates, this book teaches about wind with a first-person narration. Interspersed with the narration are side paragraphs (in a different font) that identify and name specific winds and events, to clarify and give educational information to the reader. Also, every few pages, the text breaks off to share a “Wind Chronicles” story that highlights wind’s role in history: tradition, folktales, and relevant windy historical events. The oversized pages depict wind as a swirl, as animals, and and a living force.
I wanted to like this book so much. However, the shifting narrations (from first person, to information, to “story-telling”) made it hard for me to follow. I didn’t like the first person narration. The book is set up as a nonfiction book with a table of contents in the beginning and an index at the end. But the material doesn’t seem to follow in a logical order. Well, it kind of did, but with the mix of text boxes, it was hard to carry the first person narration from page to page. There was so much else to read that I got deterred.
The illustrations are, as I mentioned, oversized and they bring the feeling of movement, but there is something about the illustrations that I don’t like. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. The front notes indicate that the illustrations were “created with both traditional and digital mediums of brush and ink and photoshop.” Maybe this combination was the issue for me: the art doesn’t match. On the front cover, for example, there is a cartoony person with defined lines. Then there is grass and swishes in the air that look like watercolor. Finally slashes in the sky indicate wind. These slashes have a consistent solid feel and color like would be done by a computer. I didn’t like the mix.
There is a lot of good information in I Am Wind, including details about why we have wind, how winds create hurricanes and tornadoes, wind’s effect on the ocean currents, and sand and erosion created due to wind. I’m not sure to classify it as a picture book or a middle-grade nonfiction book. (The oversize suggest picture book; the amount of info and length suggests middle grade.) For me, though, the narration, the structure, and even the illustrations didn’t sail my boat. (See what I did there?)
Note: I read a digital review copy of this book courtesy Netgalley. I then found a physical copy to give the text a second chance not on a screen. All opinions expressed here are my own.
