When Cloud Became a Cloud

by Rob Hodgson, Rob Hodgson (Illustrator)

Overview

Meet Cloud! Follow along as she moves, transforms, precipitates, and more in this charming and humorous portrayal of the water cycle.

The lifecycle of our protagonist, Cloud, is delightfully and sparsely narrated in nine short chapters that follow the stages of the water cycle. Young readers will immediately fall for this wide-eyed puff, and welcome facts along with humor and personality as they bask in the accomplishment of breezing through each chapter.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593224915
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/09/2021
Pages:	64
Sales rank:	98,850
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.70(d)
Lexile:	AD540L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 5 Years

About the Author

Rob Hodgson was born in a seaside town in the south of England in 1988. He studied illustration at Plymouth University. Today he lives in Bristol where he spends his days making a mess and turning it into quality illustration projects and books. He cites Yoko Ono, Ed Templeton, and Arthur Russell among his influences. Working with traditional and lo-fi techniques such as block printing and wood cut, along with digital processes, Rob combines old and new approaches to create his work. His books have been translated into a dozen languages and his first author/illustrated book, The Cave, was chosen by Book Trust to be given free to every preschool-aged child in England. Some interests include animals, skateboards, the psychology of perception, and collecting strange toys.

Editorial Reviews

"The science is serious, the explanations cheerful, and children will come away with a fairly extensive understanding of how clouds become clouds." —School Library Journal (STARRED REVIEW)

"An appealing introduction to the physical processes that water undergoes." —Publishers Weekly

"A breezy, buoyant bucketful of atmospheric basics." —Kirkus

Best Book of 2021 —School Library Journal

Camellia Award Nominee (2022)

From the Publisher

★ 01/01/2021

PreS-Gr 2—A delightful illustrated depiction of the water cycle. Hodgson begins with a sun—"Hot stuff"—over a lake, and Cloud is created through the droplets that float from the lake to the sky. Cloud goes through a metamorphosis in every chapter, incorporating breezy lessons on fog, rainbows, storm systems, snow, and rain. For example, Wind befriends Cloud and blows him around the sky. Sun and Wind work together to blow Cloud through cities, mountains, and countryside. Cloud is blown into a very cold place that allows some of its water droplets to freeze and become snowflakes that fall from the sky to the ground. Wind continues to blow Cloud into cold regions. Cloud becomes fascinated with the water droplets down in the snow and floats down to see them. Cloud goes so low that it generates fog. Cloud makes friends with other clouds, and is awestruck when Sun shines light through droplets after a storm to create a rainbow. The book is divided into easy chapters that invite closer inspection of smiling raindrops and other friendly elements. The science is serious, the explanations cheerful, and children will come away with a fairly extensive understanding of how clouds become clouds. VERDICT A simplified but terrific tale, perfect for beginning readers or anyone seeking an exciting and funny science story.—Annmarie Braithwaite, New York P.L.

School Library Journal

2020-10-27
A cloud experiences the ups and downs of the water cycle.

In a minimalist narrative attached to bright, very simple cartoon scenes in which everything from our nearest star to the tiniest water droplets sports a smiley face, Hodgson personifies but otherwise accurately represents natural processes. Sun (“I’m hot stuff!”) warms a lake so that evaporated drops rise and gather into Cloud, which, driven by a friend named Wind that “loves to blow warm air to cold places,” passes over mountains and under airplanes. When droplets cool off enough, they link up into geometrical flakes (“This is snow much fun!”), pack in until they fall as raindrops, or rub together to build up an electrical charge: “BOOM.” Clouds can gather from all over, then split up again (“Adiós!” “Sayonara!” “Jal gayo!”) after a storm while Sun shows off “a neat trick”: “RAINBOW!” The fleecy, blue-eyed wanderer returns at last to the lake…just in time for a meet-cute with a newly formed, pink-eyed compatriot. “Hi! I’m Cloud. What’s your name?” Younger cloud watchers drawn by the artless tone and the (literally) vivacious illustrations, which resemble tissue-paper collage enhanced with occasional brushwork, will be well set up to dive into deeper treatments of the topic, such as Antonia Banyard and Paula Ayer’s Water Wow!illustrated by Belle Wuthrich (2016). The small human figures visible in some scenes appear diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-14.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 90% of actual size.)

A breezy, buoyant bucketful of atmospheric basics. (Informational picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews