Close to the Wind: The Beaufort Scale

I'm a teacher, and I found this book a month after I taught my weather unit. I'm teaching eighth grade, and our science textbook has a lousy illustration of the Beaufort scale. I wish that I had known about this book then! The illustrations are beautiful and accurate. The book also teaches kids a lot about ships, which can be helpful for them to know (stern, bow, mast, etc.) Malone has done an excellent job of accurately illustrating the Beaufort scale. A++

I have to say that Peter Malone's CLOSE TO THE WIND is a gem! I can see how well he must be at children's books, from the art work and the ways in which he provides snipits of really good information. But this book is also a gem for readers of any age because, with a minimum of presupposition on the reader's part, he sets out everything about the Beaufort scale in the beautiful context of a continued story, accessible to all. The research is also first rate; everything in the story, and everything implied by the continued increase of wind, is duly amplified by the surrounding commentary and supplemental drawings. I just loved it! But especially fun for me is a connection which I could not have anticipated. Near the end, when he talks about the few ships from Beaufort's time still in existence, the name CONSTITUTION jumped off the page for me. It is indeed still afloat, and I have been fortunate enough to see it. But, more important, its reconstruction was based on studies by Thomas Gillmer, the designer of MY boat! What is more, I am currently awaiting a copy of Gillmer's book, OLD IRONSIDES, which is the story of that reconstruction. Go figure!