5 Great Books for Weather-Obsessed Kids

The Sky Stirs Up Trouble: Tornados, by Belinda Jensen and Renée Kurilla
If your kid is a budding meteorologist you should check out the Bel the Weather Girl series by Belinda Jenson, the chief meteorologist for the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Each book in the series tackles a different weather phenomenon and explains the science behind it with a story. In this book, when a tornado siren sounds, Bel’s mom rushes her and her cousin Dylan to take shelter in the basement. The storm quickly clears, but Dylan is still afraid, so Bel leads him in baking a Tornado Cake, and explaining all the right ingredients that must come together to produce a tornado.

The Man Who Named the Clouds, by Julie Hannah, Joan Holub, and Paige Billin-Frye
Like Bel, Luke Howard also grew up fascinated by studying the weather. The difference is that Luke was born in London in 1772, before there was a uniform system for classifying clouds. This book details Luke’s boyhood weather obsession, his father’s insistence that he stop looking at the clouds and learn a trade, and how he finally found the time and freedom to devote himself to science. When Luke met with others who were interested in science, he found it was difficult to discuss clouds because everyone described them differently. So, he devised the classifications cirrus, cumulus, and stratus that we still use today.

Flood, by Alvaro Villa
Weather can be fun, but it can also be scary. My kids and I experienced a flood that partially destroyed our house a few years ago, and Flood, a wordless picture book by Alvaro Villa, captures the emotions and turmoil of that experience perfectly. As you turn the pages, ominous clouds gather outside a family’s house, the parents prepare to face the floodwaters, neighbors stack sandbags, and the family finally evacuates. While they are gone, the flood rages through their home, but the book doesn’t stop there—it shows how they clean up and rebuild as the sun returns.

I Face The Wind, by Vicki Cobb and Julia Gorton
Learning about the weather is often a kid’s entryway into all forms of science, and this book leads them through simple experiments about the wind. You just need a hanger, some tape, a ball, and two un-inflated balloons to learn about the properties of the wind, prove that air has weight, and investigate the movement of air molecules.

A Pirate Adventure, by Andrew Solway
This book combines history, science and adventure as it teaches kids about the weather. The story begins by inviting kids to imagine that they are embarking on an ocean voyage on a sailing ship in the 1700s. The vessel, with no engine, must leave at night to take advantage of the offshore wind. Next, imaginary sailors must consider the role of air pressure in storms, the direction of the prevailing wind, and even contend with a pirate attack, a hurricane, and a shipwreck. Well, you wanted an adventure, didn’t you?