Whatever the Weather: Learn about Sun, Wind and Rain

by Steve Parker, Jen Metcalf, Caroline Attia (Illustrator), Little Gestalten (Editor)

Overview

Grown-ups are always talking about the weather— this book helps children understand the weather and why it changes from time to time. How is fog formed? What causes a rainbow? Why do thunder and lightning always come as a pair? Curious children can often ask questions that might even be difficult for adults to answer, but Whatever the Weather knows the facts. Bursting with colorful illustrations, examples, and anecdotes, this book explains complex processes in a snackable way. Following two friendly characters and their little dog from page to page, young readers can learn about how temperature forecasting works, how some animals have an innate ability to predict the weather and the effects of global warming. Come rain or shine, Whatever the Weather sees past the seasons and explains the world of weather in all its wonder.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783967047110
Publisher:	Gestalten
Publication date:	11/16/2021
Pages:	56
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	8 - 13 Years

About the Author

Holding a First Class Honours BSc in Zoology and a position as Senior Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society, STEVE PARKER knows the natural world. When it comes to science his formula is simple: “Remember the two I’s, information and imagination.” He has co-authored and edited over 300 non-fiction titles. This is his second book with Little Gestalten. Illustrator and animator CAROLINE ATTIA has lent her whimsical style to ELLE, The New York Times, Harvard Magazine, Pictoplasma, and other prominent publications. Her film work has earned critical acclaim at the Istanbul Animation Festival and grants from the Centre National Du Cinéma. After The Big Book of Treasures, this is her second book with Little Gestalten.

Editorial Reviews

2021-09-24
A survey of weather, and some of its causes, through four seasons.

The authors do thread in a few glances at climate change and weather extremes, but in general they present a benign picture of the sorts of weather typical to each season in temperate, Northern Hemisphere locales and how the sun, winds, and ocean currents influence them. Their efforts to keep things simple go amiss, though, when they create the impression that all deserts are hot, all winters everywhere are “cold, cloudy, and damp,” and all rainforests, tropical. They also leave readers who wonder why, say, auroras only appear near the poles or even why the sky is blue no wiser. (A simplistic claim that tropical rainforests create their own rain could use some unpacking too.) Adding occasional schematic arrows to show movements of wind or water, Attia sends two children—one brown-skinned, the other pale, with straight, black hair in a pageboy—through outdoorsy scenes of sun, rain, and snow before leaving them floating in space, looking down at our big blue marble. The low-key approach has its appeal, but more-dramatic treatments of the topic, like Isabel Otter’s Weather (2019), will give younger audiences a better sense of what they’re in for in the near future.

A bland, sketchy overview that also lacks that now-necessary sense of urgency. (Nonfiction. 7-9)

Kirkus Reviews