Cloud Dance

This book is really beautiful the scenes are like a gentle lullaby and to boot its educational I recommend all Thomas Lockers books!

My students loved this author and his illustrations. I have since bought more of his books. An excellent book to read to a class.

I, Smith T. Aames, have a secret. I was not always Smith T. Aames. Nay, I was raised an indigenous person. My original family was a small tribe of Native Americans called the Hopi, centered in Arizona. When I was a Hopi, my job was to gather succulent weeds and grasses for the tribe to eat. I think this early job was responsible for my interest in having dogs--I mean, it's very similar how I go about Washington, D.C. collecting roadkill and abandoned housecats for my dogs to feast upon. Just the other day I was able to capture an injured squirrel for my Pomeranian, PomPom P. Aames. PomPom really enjoyed the tasty, tender squirrel meat, although she did get some blood on my lovely white couch. I actually discovered a great upholstery cleaner as a result of this incident, but that is another review. So anyway, I grew up a Hopi youth, clad in leather tunics made from the hides of the bison and dodo we hunted for sustenance. I eventually left the reservation at the age of 21 for the big city. There I learned to read, write, and make frantic love to beings of all types. After leaving the lovely arid mesas of Arizona, I began to miss many things from my youth. I would remember the beautiful Native American women lolling about the reservation, the euphoric highs I got from chewing on peyote and other plants, and the occasional visits of Kevin Costner so that he could observe our way of life for his epic movie. When I found this book, Cloud Dance, I knew I had found a way to recapture my youth--my former self, Barks-With-The-Hounds Aames.

This is an absolutely beautiful book. I am an art teacher attempting to integrate the visual arts and science. This book came highly recommended by a school librarian and I am so grateful for her direction. I will definitely share the book with my students.

Thomas Locker creates an interesting way to learn about clouds in this beautifully illustrated book. As the reader turns the pages of this book, they encounter numerous types of clouds. The first illustration shows the many different sizes and shapes clouds can assume, from the light and wispy cirrus cloud to the puffy cumulus cloud. With each turn of the page, clouds are seen in different seasons and times of day, under various weather conditions. The illustrations are eye appealing oil paintings. As you view each picture, it is like you are standing on the ground and seeing the vast sky with the clouds creating a mosaic of lights, shapes, and colors. You can almost feel the rain hitting your face when you look at the painting depicting clouds in a rain storm. The painting of the clouds that "shimmer in the moonlight" gives the reader a sense of calm. Each painting in this book causes the reader to feel some emotion--from the suppressed anger of a developing thunderstorm to the warm peace of a sunset. At the end of the book the author includes factual information about clouds. The scientific names are given for all the clouds along with a description. Answers are also given for such questions as "How are clouds formed?" and "How high does the sky reach?" This book would be a good way to introduce a science unit on clouds and weather. The illustrations would stimulate a student's imagination and could be a starting point for them to begin thinking about what clouds look like at different times and in a variety of conditions. Cloud Dance would be a valuable addition to anyone's library.