Seven Skies All at Once

In lusciously stroked spreads, Myers (Children of the Forest) paints two children on the rooftops of facing brick buildings, a clothesline strung between them. As they wave at each other and their caretakers peg laundry on the line, another sort of washing rolls through behind them: building an extended metaphor, Kooser (Marshmallow Clouds) describes various cloud types as celestial laundry hung out by the skies. One sky “was unpinning its damp sheets/ of cirrus from a frayed airplane contrail” as another “hurriedly wadded up socks, T-shirts,/ and underpants of cirrocumulus and stuffed them/ into a basket woven of sunbeams.” Reflected altocumulus, on-the-move cumulus, and more cloud types scud into view in artful illustrations that show magnificent, billowing clouds dwarfing the buildings and the children. As the sky darkens, “dragging a heavy drop cloth of stratocumulus,” a storm blows in. Far from driving the children inside, the weather gives rise to a new connection, eventually visualized through another dazzling phenomenon that arcs between their buildings. Dramatic visual storytelling incorporates layers of power and feeling throughout a work that neatly, playfully illuminates cloud forms and their scientific descriptors. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 4–8. (July)