Review by Booklist Review
Twelve haiku, each with its own double-page spread, feature rain and the sound of rain in various locales around the world. Inclement days are portrayed mainly in muted shades of gray and brown, with bright spots of green and red. Humor is evident in several of the selections: A newspaper falls but won't land until morning already old news. Its accompanying picture shows a group of people and a yak crossing a wooden bridge suspended over a Himalayan gorge during a thunderstorm as a newspaper drifts downward. Sand . . . rustling as it lands, hooves thunder, and rain drums introduce the sounds of variations of rainfall. The poetry collection ends with two Japanese girls walking hand in hand: Petals raining down, and friends forget their quarrel two gentle smiles grow. The endpapers, which resemble rain-streaked windows with drops visible beyond the pane, are a fitting introduction and conclusion to the subject at hand. To be fully appreciated, this quiet book requires readers to take the time to study the paintings and ponder the well-chosen words.--Maryann Owen Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The impact of haiku and illustrations by Swedish creator Holmer (Everything Happens!) is muted-at first. The short poems, as the title promises, examine rainy weather. A series of landscapes, all double-page paintings, span the globe and feature a collection of curious, unexpected scenarios. Someone drops a newspaper off a rope bridge in the Himalayas. In a downpour on a street in some tropical city, "The car radio/ plays a song about the sun,/ but no one hears it." A person rows through a bayou with a donkey for a passenger. The paintings, friezelike sweeps in quiet earth tones, hold interest in every corner, brushed in delicate, even exquisite detail. Verse and image combine over the pages to create a distinctive view of the world-puckish ("Beneath ashes are/ seeds for a new forest that/ might burn someday too") and attuned to events large and small (in a spread of children riding horses in a driving rain, "Hooves thunder above/ moles digging underground, and/ Grandma is calling"). Incident, humor, and close observation all conspire to invite readers to see rain-and the world-in new ways. Ages 4-8. (Oct.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-Written entirely in haiku, this slim title depicts rainy days around the world. The verse transports readers from a person with a broken-down car in the middle of a storm to a much-needed rainfall after a forest fire. Each spread in the book shows how poetry and nature can marry to capture a mood in time. The work ends with a haiku about a moment after rain, a scene filled with falling pink tree petals and friendship. The delicate illustrations, done in greys and muted blues and browns, are atmospheric. The animals and people are given as much detail and care in the artwork as the tiny drops of water. This would make for an understated introduction to haiku; have students create their own weather-inspired poems. VERDICT A quiet, somewhat melancholy addition to poetry collections.-Molly Dettmann, Norman North High School, OK © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Originally published in Sweden, this collection of evocative haiku is beautifully illustrated with scenes from around the world. Each spread is a striking rain-infused tableau, often featuring young people and nature, paired with a poem about small moments and big ideas. The thought-provoking pictures and text may also be useful with older children or teens as inspiration for their own writing. (c) Copyright 2019. 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
A pastoral panorama of bucolic settings, spare verse, and multicultural depictions of rain in this Swedish import.Whether drops of water, flakes of snow, cherry-blossom petals, or dripping tendrils of moss, rains can nourish life, extinguish fires, and offer steady percussion for a locomotive musical interlude. On each rainy spread, life happens in haiku, with all its cultural variety and complexity: A crane observes two children resolving a quarrel, a goatherd wiggles a loose tooth while surveying the flock, a lighthouse keeper discovers an unmoored boat as puffins glide by, rangers monitor a dying forest fire while creatures scurry away, and travelers with llamas climb a steep hillside, stopping for a beetle in their path. Visual details encourage readers to learn more about the countries of origin of the peoples and animals depicted throughout. A short note on the copyright page explains haiku, especially the role of nature in the classic form. While these poems do not strictly follow all the characteristics of haiku, they do evoke different moods, such as the gathering darkness of a crocodile swamp. They also break stereotypes by juxtaposing technology and rural lifea cellphone rings amid a group of bareback riders galloping across a steppe. Most of all, they invite readers to pore over each colorful, expressive illustration to discover visual clues contained in the spare verse.A unique read-aloud that blends world cultures, poetic form, and natural splendor. (Picture book/poetry. 5-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
