CLOUDS

The latest in the popular Let’s-Read-And-Find-Out Science series, this Stage 1 title explores the different cloud types, their names and the weather each brings. Beginning with the fact that “clouds are made of water and particles of dust too small to see,” the text goes on to describe the different cloud types. Readers will learn that the names of the clouds indicate their height in the sky and their shape. Lessac’s bright palette depicts the seasons and the weather likely to occur underneath each cloud type. Her cast of multicultural kids plays and works in a rural farm setting. Three illustrations repeat, allowing young children to compare all the cloud types on the same page. While a good weather resource, this would be a better fit among the series’s Stage 2 titles—the amount of new vocabulary, even as well-defined within the brief text as it is, is beyond the preschool set. Pair this one with Julie Hannah’s The Man Who Named the Clouds, illustrated by Joan Holub (2006), for some background and more in-depth information. (cloud facts, “Create a Cloud”) (Informational picture book. 5-7)