This Caldecott Honor Book will show your child a whole new side to cloud watching. The young boy with tremendous drawing talent ends up creating a bit of chaos for the Sector 7 cloud staff, as he designs fun new shapes for the clouds to form into. Although the clouds are delighted with the new choices, the staff of Sector 7 eventually catches the young boy and orders him to be dropped back off at the Empire State building to rejoin his classmates on a field trip. The only words in the book are on signs in the background, giving subtle clues of locations, but the story is primarily told through beautiful water color pictures. The picture presentation style varies constantly from panels, split scenes, and full page spreads keeping it interesting. The colors increase in variety and become more vibrant as soon as Sector 7 appears.
Reader's imaginations can't help but be inspired by this exciting tale of pictures. The main character, a young boy, makes friends with a playful cloud who takes him to see Sector 7, the factory where clouds are created and given assignments. Your child will enjoy the familiar child-like humor, like when the young boy tries to look inconspicuous when he is playing with the cloud and some of his classmates walk by, or when the clouds in Sector 7 scramble clown-like to hide the boy from the worker's eyes. You can even include some education in the reading by going through the scientific cloud names, like "cirrostratus," "cumulus," "cirrus," listed on a large board in one of the pictures. Your child may want to know more about clouds, like what they are made of, or how long they 'live'.
My four-year-old niece was thoroughly inspired by this book. We spent a good hour cloud watching in the back yard that day. It was so fun to see her contemplate and then suddenly shoot out her arm to point at a "dinosaur!" or "a crown!" She even saw an "E" for Emily.
--Audra