Review by Booklist Review
Esteemed environmentalist Carson wrote a script for a 1956 educational television program inspired by a child's request for "something about the sky." In nuanced words (researched and abridged by McClure), Carson articulates both the significance and the magnificence of clouds as essential and awe-inspiring elements of the sky, the world's "second ocean." Using her skilled cut-paper style, McClure outlines spare, delicate shapes--geese in flight, water droplets soaking a forest floor, a child's solitary meander across a snowy field--and sets these expressive narrative elements against sweeping representations of sea, sky, and land rendered in layered sumi ink washes of deep blues, grays, crimsons, and golds. A fascinating collaboration from a distance of nearly 70 years, McClure's sensitive visual realizations of Carson's evocative words create a deeply satisfying wholeness, in which science is conveyed through poetic words and art reveals the majesty of the natural world. This informative and inspiring picture book is--as McClure comments in her thoughtful afterword about Carson's writing--beautifully "calm and clean and comforting."
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In 1956, after a young viewer requested to see "something about the sky," the makers of an educational TV program asked marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson (1907--1964) to write a segment on the subject. The resulting script, abridged into this closely observed work about "the atmospheric ocean... a place of movement and turbulence," begins with a description of "the ocean of air" above, then moves to cloud types and the role clouds play in distributing water over the earth. Accompanying thoughtful prose that's both lyrical and reportorial ("Without clouds, all water would remain forever in the sea"), art from McClure (What Will These Hands Make?) combines her signature cut-paper art style with washi paper and sumi ink to express the subject's sense of movement in dynamic images of cyan blue, inky black, and stormy gray. As one page discusses how Earth's atmosphere is shot through with the same kinds of onrushing currents that dominate the world's oceans, an accompanying illustration marks the rhythm of the sky's waves with swathes of deep blue that fade to white as crisp seabirds soar above. Images inspired, per a creator's note, by the ever-changing forms of cloud and sky engage with the text's precision while adding warmth and vividness via scenes of people experiencing the world's wonders. It's a fitting jumping-off place from which to contemplate "the writing of the wind on the sky"--and continue noticing the natural world. Characters' skin tones reflect the hue of the page. Ages 5--8. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Horn Book Review
This previously unpublished essay from "poet of science" Carson (1907-1964) is paired beautifully with McClure's cut-paper and swirling ink-wash art. In 1956, a children's television program asked Carson to respond to a child's request for "something about the sky." Her thoughts are as wonderfully ruminative as one might expect from the environmental scientist and nature-writing icon. She chooses the familiar -- clouds -- and connects them to "the ocean in the air," detailing natural phenomena with emphasis on the interconnectivity of Earth's air and water systems. Or, better summarized by Carson: "Clouds are as old as the earth itself -- as much a part of our world as land or sea. They are the writing of the wind on the sky. They are the cosmic symbols of a process without which life itself could not exist on earth." McClure's illustrations are limited mostly to blue, black, and white, highlighting the space and movement of air, wind, oceans, and sky in background washes. Cut-paper images of people in the foreground connect the science concepts to human experiences. In an endnote, McClure explains the origins of Carson's essay, how the book project came about, and the thoughtful and resourceful process she used to create the illustrations. Danielle J. FordMarch/April 2024 p.108 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Reflections on clouds and other wonders of our atmospheric "ocean." "This is a book for wonderers," McClure accurately notes in her illustrator's afterword. Originally written as a script for a children's television show in 1956 and unpublished until 2021, Carson's quietly eloquent essay offers a stirring mix of natural observations and insights. Our planet has two mighty oceans, she points out, both necessary for life. We live at the bottom of the one made of air, beneath clouds--described as "the writing of the wind on the sky"--that are born and die. After detailing the broad types--foggy stratus, flat-bottomed cumulus, and high-altitude cirrus--and the messages they convey in their distinctive forms and compositions, she concludes that the ocean of air, like the watery one, is still full of mysteries…but we are "learning to read the language of the sky." Using sumi ink and washi paper with cut-paper overlays, the illustrator creates misty, evocative cloudscapes behind and above views of seas and mountains in various weathers and seasons, as well as spare glimpses of human figures diverse in terms of age, with skin the color of the page, mostly with inward gazes. Overall, the effect is solemn, stately…bound to leave readers in a meditative mood. Contemplative and stirring--definitely for wonderers. (Informational picture book. 7-9) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
