Windsongs: Poems about Weather

by Douglas Florian, Douglas Florian (Illustrator)

Overview

Discover the fascinating world of weather through clever and entertaining poetry in this “delightfully sunny” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) picture book from celebrated poet Douglas Florian, creator of Dinothesaurus, Poetrees, and UnBEElievables.

Weather describes our atmosphere. Like whether it’s cloudy, or whether it’s clear. Whether it’s freezing, or frosty, or cool. Whether it’s snowing—today there’s no school!

Learn about all sorts of weather all over the world, from a regular rainy day to a hurricane, from fog to frost, from droughts to dewy mornings. With clever poems perfect for reading aloud and fact-filled backmatter, young readers can explore both everyday and once-in-a-lifetime natural phenomena.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665937726
Publisher:	Beach Lane Books
Publication date:	05/28/2024
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	667,704
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 8 Years

About the Author

Douglas Florian is the creator of many acclaimed picture books including How to Draw a Dragon, UnBEElievables, Poetrees, and Dinothesaurus. He lives with his family in New York.

Douglas Florian is the creator of many acclaimed picture books including How to Draw a Dragon, UnBEElievables, Poetrees, and Dinothesaurus. He lives with his family in New York.

Editorial Reviews

Florian provides nuggets of facts embedded in playful rhymes, often with surprise endings or a humorous slant. The poems are notable for their strong rhythms, pleasing repetition, and clever wordplay.

The Horn Book

All sorts of weather are celebrated in Florian’s latest poetic offering, blending science, humor, and creativity for a STEAM-ready, informative collection.

5/1/24 - The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

"Being, as usual, both clever and informative, Florian sprinkles this quick summer shower of verses on weather-related topics with playfully delivered truisms (“Lightning is frightening!”) and facts.... A brisk, breezy sampler; the forecast calls for repeat readings."

5/1/24 - Booklist

04/01/2024

PreS-Gr 1—This nonfiction picture book blends the beauty of weather with the elegance of poetry through its unique and memorable style. Each spread features a different element of weather, including types of storms, instruments used to measure weather, and more. The verses all vary in style, incorporating some rhymes and visual stylings to connect the words with their topics of focus. Many poem selections resemble a weather type, such as a spiral for a hurricane and lightning emerging from a cloud. These artistic choices serve the dual purpose of introducing children to the varied ways in which poetry can be created, as well as providing readers with a memorable way of recognizing weather features. Facing each poem is an accompanying illustration that embraces childlike art, using visible pencil lines, asymmetrical imagery, and muted hues. Together, the text and pictures make the concept of weather accessible to a very young audience, especially when used to teach about weather for the first time. A glossary provides more detailed information about each featured weather type, enhancing the learning that can happen thanks to this book. VERDICT A unique and accessible title that helps young children connect to weather in a foundational and introductory manner.—Mary Lanni

School Library Journal

★ 2024-02-17
In 20 expertly crafted poems, Florian illuminates the origins, types, and effects of weather.

Beginning with scene-setters about weather and our atmosphere and ending with a sober look at climate change, the veteran poet-illustrator riffs, often gleefully, on elements from rain and hail to frost and drought. He frequently uses personification, alliteration, and repetition, encapsulating solid information in economical rhymes and deft wordplay. “Cloud” narrates its own delight in “wrecking” the reader’s fun: “I rain cascades / on your parades. /…To nip your nap / I thunderclap.” Maintaining that “fog is just / a cloud that’s lost,” Florian describes how “it drifted down, / close to the ground, / then napped beside a hill. / And gave the day / ten shades of gray, / each un-fog-gettable.” Poems often take concrete forms, spiraling in “Hurricane” and assuming the shape of a funnel for “Tornado.” The text appears on pages of saturated color, opposite playful illustrations executed in gouache, colored pencil, and rubber stamps on primed paper bags. Humans vary in skin tone and cavort (and contort) in service of Florian’s visual jokes. For “Hurricane,” an umbrella-wielding person’s yellow slicker spirals round and round, echoing that poem’s shape. A “never ever wrong” meteorologist stands before a weather map, staring in shock at the barrage of hailstones despoiling a sunny forecast. In an image accompanying the last poem, three people—wearing caps that warn against damaging greenhouse pollutants—hold up our sea-blue planet.

Appealing information in a delightfully sunny package. (glossary, weather websites, selected sources and further reading) (Picture book/poetry. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews