Clouds of Terror

by Catherine A. Welch, Laurie K. Johnson (Illustrator)

Overview

Helga and Erik could not believe their eyes. There were grasshoppers everywhere, and they were eating the crops! In the 1870s, when grasshoppers destroyed farms in Minnesota and other Midwestern states, many families gave up and moved away. This is the story of how two Swedish immigrant children help their parents save their home on the prairie.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780876146392
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/01/1994
Series:	On My Own History
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 0.13(d)
Lexile:	620L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 9 Years

About the Author

Catherine A. Welch is an award-winning author with more than 20 books to her credit and is a writing instructor with the Institute of Children's Literature. Elementary teachers have found her two short historical fiction books especially useful in the classroom. A teaching strategy for her book, Clouds of Terror,  an NCSS/CBC Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, appeared in Instructor (October 1995). A four-day lesson plan for Danger at the Breaker, her book praised by School Library Journal and Booklist, appears at teachers.net. While many of her works are biographies and history books, her writing credits include several science books. She has degrees in biology and biochemistry, and enjoys giving writing workshops to children and teachers.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 2-4-Set in Minnesota in the 1870s, this story brings some of the hardships of pioneer life to the attention of newly independent readers. The dark, shiny clouds racing across the prairie don't bring the rain that nine-year-old Helga and her seven-year-old brother, Erik, expect-instead, hordes of grasshoppers descend upon them, heralding the family's fight for survival. The action-packed beginning, in which the insects devastate the crops, changes to a conversation-driven text describing how the family makes plans and endures through the winter. Although the characters' faces are not well executed, the watercolor illustrations enhance the mood of the story and provide visual breaks in the text, which does not have chapter divisions. A two-page author's note is included. This is far from Patricia MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall (HarperCollins, 1985), but it is an adequate story.-Gale W. Sherman, Pocatello Public Library, ID

School Library Journal