Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
With a natural poetic rhythm, the nonfiction picture book Zap! Clap! Boom!: The Story of a Thunderstorm by Laura Purdie Salas and illustrated by Ellie MacKay (Bloomsbury, February 2023) skillfully depicts the development and impact of a thunderstorm. The text takes readers on a journey from a calm day to the formation of clouds and
Drop: An Adventure Through the Water Cycle by Emily Kate Moon (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2021). Watercolor (specifically, India ink mixed with water) seems to be the perfect medium for illustrating the water cycle. In Drop, the author/illustrator emphasizes the eternal existence of Drop as she has cycled through Earth’s atmosphere and surface over
Ice Cycle by Maria Gianferrari, illustrated by Jieting Chen (Millbrook Press, 2022) is subtitled “Poems about the Life of Ice,” and I must say that, just as I had never considered the variety of animals living near icebergs, I had never considered varieties of ice on which those animals live! Yes, as Gianferrari shows in
Water is Water by Miranda Paul, illustrated by Jason Chin (Roaring Brook Press, 2015). Although the subtitle is “A Book about the Water Cycle,” Water is Water provides a readable, poetic reminder about the various stages in which water accumulates on the Earth. The various forms water takes range from water to steam (technically, it
The world lost a legend when we lost Tomie dePaola recently. The Cloud Book that he wrote and illustrated (Holiday House, 1975). is a one-of-a-kind, semi-comprehensive volume about clouds for early elementary children. It is written in the second person, immediately drawing in a young child. First, the book introduces clouds as drops of water
Clouds by Anne Rockwell, illustrated by Frane Lessac (HarperCollins, 2008, Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Stage 1) provides a gentle introduction to clouds, with a nice tone that brings the reader into the text, encouraging observation of the worlds around us. As Rockwell provides explanations about types of clouds, the illustrator, Lessac, provides the same clouds image of where
As with many of the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out series books, Franklyn M. Branley’s Down Comes the Rain, illustrated by James Graham Hale (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Stage 2, Harper Collins, 1963/1997), interests the child reader by giving examples of simple things for children to do and try throughout. For example, it suggests activities such as dipping one’s fingers in water,
Did a Dinosaur Drink This Water? by Robert D. Wells (Albert Whitman & Company, 2006) discusses water in all of its forms, connecting the water dinosaurs drank to the water that brings us nutrients. Using the need for water for everything on Earth (from plants to animals to ourselves), he captures the essence of the
I did not know the large variety of living things that live in the Alaska tundra near glaciers until I read Who Lives Near a Glacier?: Alaska Animals in the Wild by Susi Gregg Fowler (Little Bigfoot, 2022). Gorgeous up-close paintings and child-friendly poetry capture this animal variety, from dragonflies to seals to ice worms.
Breaking Through the Clouds: The Sometimes Turbulent Life of Meteorologist Joanne Simpson by Sandra Nickel, illustrated by Helena Perez Garcia (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2022) teaches readers about an unknown young woman who went into a unique STEM field in the mid-1900s, this time the study of meteorology. Her interest in clouds began even
The first line of All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon and Katherine Tillotson (Atheneum for Young Readers, 2011) is so classic I find myself thinking about it, long after I finish reading this early introduction to the water cycle: “All the water in the world is all the water in the
Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean by Arthur Dorros (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out, Stage 2, HarperCollins Children’s Books, 1991) emphasizes the collection and movement of water. It names and explains underground water systems, springs, brooks, rivers, and water’s power to carve through rocks to create canyons. Water’s interaction with Earth creates waterfalls, causes floods, and is dammed
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