If you know Tomie dePaola, it is probably due to his classic Strega Nona. (And if you haven’t read that, go and do that now.)
In addition to his fiction, though, dePaola did some nonfiction. His 1975 picture book The Cloud Book is one of those.
As the title indicates, this is a book about cloud. It does a good job of explaining different types of clouds, sharing drawings of those clouds, and explaining the role of clouds in general or specific types of clouds in history and culture. It handles its educational function well.
However, you can get most or, to be frank, all of this elsewhere. What makes this book lovely and engaging is dePaola’s personal touch. The drawings are whimsical and the tone gentle. Cats and birds join humans in staring at the clouds, and some echo characters from dePaola’s other books. (There’s an older woman who might be Strega Nona, for example.)
It’s rare to read books about meteorology with a little smile on my face, but that was the case here.
