The Weather’s Bet is another of those picture books that is wonderful in its way, but where I’m not sure it is a picture book for children.
Caldecott medalist Ed Young created this book, and if you know Young’s work, you know that means the illustrations are fantastic. Young illustrated more than 100 books, and won dozens of (well-deserved) awards for them. He often worked with fairy tales and fables, and that’s the case here: this is a retelling of one of Aesop’s stories in which different natural elements have an argument, which they settle with a bet.
When I read Aesop’s version, it was a conflict and bet between the sun and the north wind. In this case, Young gives us the wind, rain, and sun, and they bet they can make a shepherd take her cap off.
Wind tries with forceful gales, but fails.
Rain drenches the shepherd, but fails.
Finally, sun makes the day warm and pleasant, and the shepherd takes the cap off as she laughs with pleasure.
What makes this book so striking, and so strange for children, is Young’s unique and ambitious art. These collages blend simplified images with actual photos (making, for example, the sheep more real than the shepherd). Young was born in China, and includes symbols based on Chinese pictograms in the book: a symbol accompanies the name of each force of nature. There’s a lot of motion here, and at times, only limited contrast. For example, on one page white text is placed in front of pale gray clouds, making the text easier to miss and harder to read. This seems, in short, like a book version of a unified gallery show for adults, rather than a children’s book.
But it is lovely.
