Tuesday 16 July 2013

Not a Cloud in the Sky by Emma Quay



 When life gets busy sometimes it’s easy to forget to look up and so you can miss on some really marvellous clouds (don’t even get me started on stars!) having kids around can provide you with opportunities to not only look up but also down and at most things that we would normally miss. We’ve been looking at clouds lately due to a school subject on weather for which we made a ‘cloudometer’ and just because clouds are just so darn fascinating. One of the lovely things about clouds is their ability to look like other things. Emma Quay uses this as the premise of her delightful new book called Not a Cloud in the Sky. A little bird meets a cloud who wants to play a guessing game. The bird, tired from travel, is rejuvenated by the simple, fun game as the cloud takes on all manner of shapes like a giraffe and an elephant and a dragon beautifully timed to coincide with sunset.
This is a playful story that celebrates play and imagination and the friendships that spring from unlikey sources. It also has some rather nice little zen sentiments about life like things looking different from another point of view. The text and the illustrations capture the playful nature of the story; there’s a sense of delight and fun that make reading it so enjoyable. And the illustrations are just lovely with the sweet little bird and the wispy, cheeky little cloud and the transition from day to nightime reflected in the colours of the sky.
My son adores this book and happily took it to school so his teacher could read it to the class where it was well received. A great book for children and cloud lovers everywhere.
There are some interesting explanations about the illustrations on Emma’s website http://www.emmaquay.com/illustrating.html#cloud

ISBN : 9780733330919
RRP: $24.99
Publisher: ABC Books  
No. of pages: 32 pages
Rating: 4.5
Themes: Friendship, imagination, play, weather, clouds
Suitable for : 3+

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