Wind Watchers

In lilting words and elegant collage spreads by Caldecott Honoree Archer, three children are shown encountering the varied powers of wind across the seasons. The three light-brown-skinned kids are first seen standing on top of a rise, faces turned up, dark hair blowing sideways. “Sometimes we call out to Wind, ‘How will you blow today?’ ” A page turn shows them perched in a pink-blossomed tree: “In Spring, Wind answers with a puff at the petals.” And as the kids walk through a pine forest in the rain, three umbrellas glow with color from patterned papers in red, yellow, orange, and blue. In warmer weather on a sandy beach, the children holler, “Can you help us fly our kite?” Fall and winter bring new wonders, including released milkweed down and icy breezes. Fully developed right to the edges, tapestry-like spreads consistently offer new things to find—the interesting shadows of beach umbrellas, a distant house with its windows alight—in this captivating year-long study of an elusive, invisible force. Ages 3–7. (Mar.)