Weather Books

A sympathetic portrayal of a very admirable young scientist, "Invention" also conveys a sense of the popularization of scientific culture at the beginning of the 18th century. Hamblyn touches on the effects of the emergence of periodicals, societies of (nongentry) scientists, and even the postal system on this new culture. Diverse facts (half-kg hail and volcanic eruptions) balance the overall somewhat romantic tone. Hamblyn was obviously acutely aware of the tension between instrumented science and romantic arts; that is an explicit theme of the book as well as modulating his writing. My only complaints: too many long unnecessary quotes (Goethe!), tables not adequately explained (were Smeaton's data calculated as I think or measured as Hamblyn elliptically suggests?), and the seminal article by Howard was never really systematically discussed (just rather disconnected dribs and drabs).

This book takes you to England of around 1800, when a young amateur scientist managed to come up with the nomenclature we use to this day to classify clouds. The life of Luke Howard is fascinating in and of itself as he goes about his scientific and business dealings. The author also notes why Mr. Howard's system became the system used today, even though it was only one of several major attempts to classify clouds as meteorology became more systematic. The book covers its topic well and would be of interest to anyone interested in the history of meteorology or scientific inquiry.

A young man, obsessed with clouds and their formation, makes a detailed study of them. All this has been done before, but never in such a concise, visionary way, nor with a naming convention as brilliant in its simplicity, expressiveness and utility as Luke Howard's.

His story is dealt with in a series of chapters that digress from the main thrust of the book to outline the history of the philosophical changes that were taking place, in Europe particularly. Almost any cockeyed idea found a ready audience, who were equally ready to dismiss ideas out-of-hand. The trick was presentation. Many of the famous names in science at the end of the 18th century were showmen, financing their researches by giving displays or private shows... getting your name known was half the battle.
Luke Howard was born into a world where being in the right place at the right time meant more than any social connections or political clout.
But, being a Dissenter, he had no formal education, no political clout and no social connections - not much chance for him to get his ideas aired, it seemed. Nor was he a showman - his Quaker upbringing saw to that - so luck, and dedication, came to his assistance.

Philosophical societies and journals were in their infancy, and were ready to embrace anyone who could increase membership or circulation. This was the chance, and in an hour-long presentation, young Howard captivated his audience and introduced a naming system for clouds, which is still in use today, 200 years on. This was what meteorology had been waiting for - a standard method of logging cloud formations. This was invaluable too for poets and writers, who suddenly found a new addition to their descriptive vocabulary. Small wonder that cirrus, cumulus and nimbus quickly entered everyday conversation (the Englishman's main topic being the weather).

The book is very well written, giving us a feel for the social, political and philosophical climate in the Napoleonic era. By various pertinent descriptions of people and events directly and indirectly connected with Howard, we are introduced to some of the greats of the Age of Enlightenment; but none of it feels contrived or beside the point, nor is it ever boring.

This is an enthralling read, illustrating how easily a single person or idea can change the direction and thrust of a science... Well worth reading.

"The Invention of Clouds" is an endearing little book about a generally forgotten moment in the history of science. It seems obvious to us today but until Englishman Luke Howard, a chemist with an interest in the then-young science of meteorology, gave a public lecture on cloud classification in London in 1802, nobody had been able to categorize cloud formations in an easily-understood and consistent manner. The terms we take for granted-cumulus, cirrus, stratus and so forth-were applied by the 30 year-old Howard for the first time. He drew upon his classical education to find suitable Latin names for what he termed "the modifications of clouds." He understood that clouds pass through stages and in his lecture he described the changes they underwent. His audience understood immediately the importance of his lecture and it was published soon afterwards to great acclaim.

Luke Howard became famous throughout the world. It is clear that he must have viewed this with mixed feelings. As a modest Quaker, he did not seek celebrity but as a scientist he was undoubtedly proud of his accomplishment. It is a beautiful achievement. By naming that which was ever-present but unnamed, Luke Howard helped forge the language of meteorology and provided some of the most important tools for weather observation and forecasting. His Latin names speak to the universality of climate and his detractors, who felt that the classifications should have been in English, were soon silenced. The book describes the reaction of artists as well. On the one hand, there were those who believed that clouds, as objects of great natural beauty and a symbol of freedom, would lose something by being systematically classified, as if they were species of beetles, but others, including the painter Constable, used the classification of the clouds as a basis for their art. The great genius of the period, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, completely enchanted by Luke Howard's work and personality, dedicated a series of marvellous poems to him, with each stanza based on one of the new cloud-forms.

But even having poetry dedicated to you by Goethe is not enough to claim enduring fame. Luke Howard seems to have lived a quiet existence, marked by some success in business and a happy family life. He died at the age of 91, remembered fondly by only his relatives. Richard Hamblyn, in writing this book, must have struggled to develop enough material as it appears that the lecture of 1802 was the high point of Luke Howard's scientific life and his attention was then taken up more by commerce and religious issues. Mr. Hamblyn gives us a history of the earlier attempts to define clouds, reaching back to Aristotle. He throws in the story of the Beaufort Wind Scale, which was inspired by but not as readily-accepted as Luke Howard's cloud system. He deals with the subsequent amendments to the cloud classifications and we learn of the International Meterological Conference and its winsomely-named Cloud Committee, which was to produce the International Cloud Atlas.

All very interesting, but it is in the sections about Luke Howard and his contemporaries, fascinated by the rapid progress in science at the end of the 18th Century, where the book is most alive. Richard Hamblyn ably paints a picture of London's crowded lecture halls where science was popular culture, of dangerous experiments and fantastic personalities. Men of brilliant and adventurous minds, often denied higher education due to their religion, could look into the future and stake a claim. The author, in sharing Luke Howard's triumph with us, has written an elegant work brimming with enthusiasm.

Luke Howard was an amateur in the true sense of the word; Luke Howard named the clouds for the love of them. Richard Hamblyn does a fine job telling the story of Luke Howard's life, his naming of the clouds, and Howard's milieu in the book The Invention Of Clouds. Howard, a Quaker and a pharmacist, went from unknown working man to celebrity when he presented his paper "On The Modifications Of Clouds" to the Askesian Society in London on a night in December of 1802. The paper had the right combination of insights, poetry, and luck to insure that the terms cirrus, stratus, cumulus, and nimbus [or derivatives] are still being used by meteorologists today. Hamblyn's weave of biography, history, art, and science was enjoyable to read and held together most of the time [Chapter 10: The Beaufort Scale was not as well connected to book as the rest of the material]. The hardback is such a beautiful and unusual book, I shelved my copy, waited for the paperback to read it, and then donated the paperback to the high school library. I highly recommend The Invention Of Clouds to anyone with an interest in meteorology, history, Quakerism, or biography.

Chris Mooney presents a fascinating inside look into the politics and personalities behind hurricane science and scientists. With the possibility that global warming can increase the destructive power of hurricanes, a formerly non-controversial topic became highly politicized in a short amount of time. Predictably, scientists were in two basic camps: one believed global warming makes hurricanes worse, and one believed that global warming (which may not be occurring) does not make hurricanes worse.

Although Mooney keeps the pace moving along, by the time you finish this book, you may know more about hurricanes than you bargained for. At times, the book is almost too detailed for its own good, but if you know at least a little basic meteorology, you should be able to handle all the atmospheric science thrown into the book. Good book on a fascinating subject.

This is an exceptionally well done example of scientific journalism.
It presents a balanced review of both sides of the global warming ->
hurricanes issue while recognizing that the consensus of scientific opinion is that global warming is a real phenomenon.

Chris Mooney has written a fascinating account of one of the more complex issues associated with global warming -- the possibility of increased hurricane activity. Ever since Katrina, this issue has been central in public debate about the consequences of enhanced greenhouse warming on our planet. However, linking greater hurricane intensity to global warming is less straightforward than understanding the melting of glaciers and polar ice, desertification, or the rise in sea levels. Mooney explores this complexity and the different approaches to science of the main protagonists. The result is a fascinating and subtle account of personalities and science issues -- more nuanced, and hence more accurate, than many journalistic perspectives on the science behind global warming.

This is a good book, but not quite as good as the other reviewers suggest. I suspect that how much you like this book depends, in part, on how much you agree with the author's views. Put simply, although the book purports to be an objective overview of the interaction between science and politics, Mr. Mooney makes it clear which side he thinks is right. Those skeptical of global warming tend to be marginalized as out of touch, cranks, or biased by "special interests." This detracts from the book in a significant way because it casts doubt on the accuracy of the analysis. Indeed, in several places, the author seems to go out of his way to downplay data that undercuts the "global warming is making hurricanes worse" thesis that he endorses.

Having said that, the book is still very readable and full of information about hurricanes and the history of their study. Whenever the author is not talking about global climate change, his account of the science and the scientists is engaging and clear.

In sum, worth reading if you have any interest in hurricanes, but take his discussions of the state of global warming science with a large grain of salt.

It was probably a coincidence that this book reached our library just as I started teaching an online meteorology class at a local university. Whether or not, I found it invaluable in directing the discussions for this class since global warming is the most significant current issue for this science, and all roads/students/newspapers etc. lead directly to the issue.

For such a topic that is wrought with both political and emotional issues, I thought Chris Mooney did a wonderful job of presenting all the sides. There are never just one or two sides in any science. I saw that when I did research in HIV encephalitis in med school. It was amazing not only the good research that was done and reported but also the quacks that came out of the woodwork. They could have done reasonable and valid research prior to their introduction of mistaken theories and concepts, but boy, if you insisted they were wrong...even if it did turn out later they were wrong, they would cling to those theories like velcro. Not only did they cling to the theories, but if they couldn't get published in recognized peer reviewed journals, they started up their own journal!

This inability of both scientists and politicians to admit to mistakes about previously held beliefs is a real problem in science. Not just in meteorology, though I can see from Mooney's book that due to the attention that hurricanes brought to global warming, these guys who are often social inept were thrown into a maelstrom they didn't have the foggiest idea how to contend with (weather puns definitely intended).

I recommended this book to my students, and I don't do that often. I will continue to refer back to this book because it put very well the divides that not only exist in science, but even among communities and families concerning this issue (my husband is a wait-and-see guy, while I am one of those people who think we should do whatever we can possibly do to minimize our impact on climate).

Great book...great discussion.

Karen Sadler

I remember some of the media coverage about Camille but Bechtel takes the reader inside the storm for a thrilling, if harrowing, ride. I confess I was ignorant of the damage in Virginia and I certainly did not put Woodstock and Camille together before reading this book. For disaster junkies like me, this is a MUST for your top shelf. For anyone interested in those reacting to a disaster, this book introduces you to some unforgettable people. And, for anyone living on the Gulf Coast, it should be required reading. Every week.

review posted in the American Geographical Society newsletter, "Ubique":

The past as prologue: The story of Hurricane Camille, which until recently defined the apex of tropical energy and fearsomeness, as told by Stefan Bechtel in ROAR OF THE HEAVENS.
During the summer of 1969, nature opened her Pandora's box and released Camille. She perhaps took her first steps as a tropical wave of energy out of the Ethiopian Highlands, made a lazy parabolic arc through the southern Atlantic, then hit the cauldron of warm sea air in the Caribbean.
Bechtel follows nimbly on her heels and issues moment-by-moment reports. He provides a skilful, basic understanding of hurricane science -- readers walk away with a firm grasp of orographic effects, the nature of the tropopause and the fluid mechanics of storm surges -- as well as a "disaster culture" that spurs people to take the storm head on, a culture of cataclysmic ignorance.
What drives that point home is the vivid reconstruction of what it was like to be in the storm, fashioned out of interviews with a few principle actors and dozens of bit players. The storm made landfall to the east of New Orleans with winds that at times approached 200 mph and carrying a storm surge three stories in height. Survivors talk of darkness and howling, being raked by flying glass, having their clothes stripped off. Entire communities were obliterated, while farther to the north, the Woodstock Music Festival was being pelted by rain from all the atmospheric disturbance.
Bechtel relates how then the storm started to disintegrate as it moved up the Mississippi Valley, falling off the radar, only to gather itself once more, dropping biblical rains -- perhaps thirty inches in a nightlong deluge -- on a confined area in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Once again, Bechtel's storytelling power takes on a terrifying clarity. Scores would die as towns were scoured clean away, the rain so heavy it was nearly impossible to simply breathe. A mountainside sloughed off, writes Bechtel, leaving the eerie "smell of deep time."
Camille was a meterological event of the first order. So is Bechtel's recreation.

Being from Nelson County and having lived in Nelson County during the fate of Camille in 1969 - this is a GREAT BOOK!!! My, how it bought back the memories of that time in a 'story' fashion, I couldn't put it down and I was there during Camille. I wish there had been more pictures that others reading this book could truly understand how devastated our county was and why the good folks from Nelson would cringe at the site of a continuous rain fall for a couple of days and schools would close for years to come. However the author did an excellent job in describing just how bad it was without pictures. We still talk about that time and 'where we were', and remember the families and friends that were lost to 'A LADY CALLED CAMILLE' because there was no warning or opportunity to get to higher grounds.
Thank you Stefan Bechtel helping others to understand what a hurricane can do to a town, community and people for years to come.

I was on my way to a Poetry Festival on a Friday, and
I started reading Roar of the Heavens Thursday night.
Instead of getting rested for the Festival, I was up
until 1:30 am, When I arrived, and pitched my tent, and
got to the Festival grounds, I immediately sat down and
started reading the book. Instead of strolling the village,
breaking into a discussion on Craft with a Poet, I sat
down and kept reading. Friday night was freezing cold,
and I kept reading. In the cold, I kept thinking about
the fascinating dynamics of the structure of a Hurricane,
and Warren Raines freezing as he clung to tree branches.
On Saturday, during a readings break, I climbed into my
car, and finished the book. Finally, I could stop thinking
about what happened to Mary Anne, Buzz, etc, and etc, and
starting absorbing some POETRY. Saturday night it was
raining, and I was terrified driving to the campground,
and hearing the rain on the roof of my tent, and it was
pouring Sunday morning, and I wondered if having been
isolated from Weather forecasts, something was coming of
which I was unaware. And thought of the unidentified bodies
perhaps hiking the trails as Camille roared through.
What a riveting read, and the adrenaline is still pumping!
The scientific explanation of the mechanics of a Hurricane
were so clearly described, and fascinating. And the interweaving
of what was happening in the country and world, with
the life and death dramas of those trying to survive
Camille really put things in time and place that connects
the reader intimately to the events. And the families and people
were so real; their pain and suffering, and the incredible
devastation. I know I was thinking about going to college
that summer, at that's all I remember. I remember going
to Mardi Gras in 1972 and seeing the steps going to no where
on the Coast, Biloxi. And I used to drive Rt. 29 going to
Conn. from N.C. in the seventies. Congratulations on writing
such an intense and absorbing, and well researched book.

The afterward and epilogue of this book resonate very closely with observations made by author Jill Fredston in her book "Snowstruck." Humanity seems to have an enormous capacity to forget disaster and to overestimate it's ability to tame nature. News media covering natural disasters regularly describe them as "unprecedented," a patently inaccurate description which has more to do with our collective memory than with reality.

Stefan Bechtel has done good research and assembled a wealth of first hand narratives and scientific explanation. I appreciated the reflections in his aftermath, epilogue and afterword.

In fact, my only criticism of the book is that it becomes rather repetitive at times, grasping for new superlatives and heaping disaster upon disaster and sorrow upon sorrow. Interspersing more analysis between some of the narrative accounts would have suited my reading tastes better, but that takes nothing away from the fact that this is well done book about a truly horrific natural disaster that most Americans probably have no knowledge of.

This is a beautifully written book that is at times poetic. It is powerful and moving.--Rene

This novel relays in story form lives lived in the hollars below a form of coal "mining" called by many Mountain Top Removal. What is happening in these communities is real. The cost on lives, land, and streams is high. Pancake's Strange as This Weather Has Been: A Novel helps bring this home for all of us.

The novel tells a true story of destruction of ourland and community to turn it into money. The author captures the pathos of the people involved while accurately depicting the appalachian culture.

This is a great novel about a people, it's culture and attachment to the land, and it's destruction to fuel our never ending appetite for energy. It is the same story occurring in many parts of this country (i.e., in New Mexico, Kentucky, etc. See: [...]). I couldn't put it down, but didn't want to finish it either.

This book is as deep and powerful as the sludge ponds it tell us about. It was so interesting I had actually to find out the real events of the Buffalo Creek disaster. But even pictures can't effect you like the raw emotion in this book. Well written, emotional, and hard edged. Read it, weep, discover, and then pass it on!

A great book for plant lovers in the high plains, or the high desert. This book contains inspiring photographs and great plant lists (the most valuable part of the book, as these lists are nowhere to be found elsewhere), as well as wise advise from a well experienced gardener. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading nearly every page of this book. On the downside, the plants in the book may be difficult to find, unless you join a rock garden club and grow the plants from seed. I wish the plant portrait section was three times as big. But overall, this book is indispensible.

I agree with others, lovely prose, lovely photos, good organization. However, if you are looking for a true mountain (high altitude) gardening book, this won't do it. The author is of course speaking of her own experiences but I purchased this book believing it would help me to be a "Colorado Gardener." Not one word on dealing with elk and deer attacks on your plants or that short and really unpredictable growing season above 7500 feet in the Rocky Mountains. This book did make me miss my old mid-Atlantic garden badly!

Lauren Springer is a gifted writer as well as a gifted gardener. She has a knack for passing on her knowledge in a very interesting way, making the book more than just a plant encyclopedia.

In part, this book is a novel about her own garden, but she goes far from her own chunk of dirt to show and describe plants which work in a variety of climates. If there's any one gem I pulled from this book it is to plant the correct plant for the specific micro-climate rather than trying to adapt the micro-climate for the plant you've chosen. This is much easier to do, more rewarding, and requires less maintenance.

This book is a good read now, and a good reference for later on.

I bought this book back in the mid-1990's after attending a lecture by Lauren Springer. Of all the books in my extensive garden book collection- I would list this as one of the top 3. As a Landscape Architect, I frequently review the suggested plantings and incorporate many of the plants she suggests into my xeriscape designs for clients. When her book first came out, it was difficult to find seeds (let alone plants) that are profiled in the book. Fortunately, most of the plants are available now but some may require ordering from places like High Country Gardens.

As others have said, she has an interesting writing style that will have you reading and enjoying the text- not just looking at the pretty pictures!

In The Undaunted Garden: Planting For Weather-Resilient Beauty, gardening expert offers the novice gardener a wonderfully written, illustrated and presented guide to the art and science of growing and maintaining a lovely year-round garden despite harsh climatic conditions. Here are to be found all the information, guidance, tools, and ideas and inspiration to achieving a healthy garden suited to environmental conditions. Springer's informative and engaging text is enhanced with lists of more than 1,000 attractive, resilient plants; complete and detailed descriptions of 64 especially recommended plants; and more than 250 superb photographs. The Undaunted Garden is a core addition to any personal or community library gardening reference collection!

National Audubon Society Field Guides are the GREATEST! Thank you for this excellent book on the weather. This book is technical, but really gets into forcasting the wather.

I have given several of these as gifts to friends of a more scientific mindset, and they love it. They can pick it up and identify that odd thing over the mountain, and the haze around the moon. I have also used it many times for work. I can show a Director this book and he/she can say "I want that kind of sky!". Sure beats trying to create a sky from some vague mis-informed description of clouds they say years ago! I am about to give a copy to a director I'm working with right now, and that's why I'm here: to order it!. He loved the book today when I pushed it across the tabe to him, and it helped flag the clouds we'll use in his commercial. I recemmend it to anyone of a curious mindset, or for professional art direction. High quality binding too!

L.E.

This is a great book. We have several Audobon Society handbooks and love them all.

I believe this book was previously known as the Field Guide to Clouds, not sure exactly when the change took place but I'm glad to have finally re-found this book. What first allured me to this series when I was a child were the amazing photographs in the middle. Some very rare species of clouds all beautifully captured. The information contained within this book is very well organised, and as said in the title it fully lives up to its field guide reputation. By identifying the clouds you see in the sky via the photographs you can then follow the page number to the description of the formation and what weather you can expect from it. Alternatively, there are essays in the beginning describing several weather phenomenon and their life cycles, where they can be expected in North America and much much more.

This is a fantastic book for anyone interested in weather and particularly clouds. While made with North America in mind, anyone could enjoy this book especially the brilliant photography included with it.

What I find very valuable about this book is the fact that it is loaded with illustrations of different kinds of meteorological phenomena. For a pilot, it is important to understand what sort of weather you are going to be flying into. If you don't spend a lot of time studying meteorology, it can be difficult to conceptualize what kind of cloud formation is ahead of you. Some of the pilots' literature have rather weak illustrations.

This book is an excellent supplement to any pilot's training manual in providing visual aids for learning about spotting weather phenomnena.

Also, in general, it is very enjoyable to page through the book, as the quality of photography is very good.

This is a wonderful book on weather. And the extreme values it gives are actually fairly interesting and fun to read about. Besides, we all like to know if we're in the middle of truly unusual weather.

The book starts with heat records for every state, both absolute maximums and July averages. As well as maps showing number of days with 90-degree (Fahrenheit) or higher temperatures. We learn about temperature-humidity indexes, heat waves, and even heat bursts. As well as extremes in temperature ranges. There's information about heat extremes in foreign countries as well.

Next we get to cold weather! Heat records for every state, both absolute minimums and January averages. Cold waves. Wind chill. And international extremes. Did you know that near Lake Vostok, in Antarctica, the temperature once reached minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit? Brrrr!

We learn about the snowiest cities. And then we get to rainfall records for a big bunch of American cities. There are also records for varying amounts of time. What's the record for rainfall in 30 minutes? It's over 11 inches! And it fell in Sikeshugou, China. And there's material about floods, thunderstorms, hail, and tornadoes. As well as wind and fog!

There is a fascinating chapter on hurricanes. I vividly remember Hurricane Carol, which struck in August of 1954. And there's a picture of Providence, Rhode Island, after it was hit by the storm surge from that hurricane. There is also an excellent map of the American Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean coasts, with probabilities per year of being hit by a hurricane, as well as probabilities of being hit by 125 mile-per-hour winds or greater. The five areas that in 2004 that were "overdue" for a hurricane are listed. Of course, as any technical person knows, being "overdue" for a storm does not increase the chance of being hit, if anything, it decreases it. But it does imply that one may be less prepared for one when it does hit. New Orleans is listed as one of the five areas (it was hit by Betsy in 1965 and not hit again until Katrina in 2005). The book explains that the dikes protecting downtown New Orleans, including the French Quarter, from the water in Lake Pontchartrain would almost certainly be overwhelmed by a Category 4 or 5 storm surge. And that if they were, much of that area could be swamped under 20 feet of water. I wish that more people with the responsibility for protecting the city of New Orleans (or voting for its protection) had been more aware of this, so that some of the damage caused by Katrina might have been lessened.

I highly recommend this book.

This is a well written and fascinating book on weather extremes. I'm only about 100 pages into it, but I enjoyed it so much I wanted to make a brief comment.

Although the book is mostly about extreme weather phenomena, you'll also learn a lot about more normal types of weather, since if you understand how the more extreme storms are generated, you often can understand how the less severe ones occur as well. But this is done in the context of learning about the more severe and extreme types of weather, which I find an interesting approach. After all, there isn't much when it comes to natural phenomena that's scarier than a hurricane or a tornado (well, earthquakes and tsunamis of course are right up there too, but in weather, they're the kings :-)). I once read that a typical hurricane can release each second 100 times the energy in the first atomic bomb (which was a 20 kiloton bomb).

The book discusses weather extremes from rainfall to tornadoes for the U.S. and the rest of the world, including many fascinating topics, such as internally lit tornadoes that glowed with their own light. Witnesses reported orange lightning bolts coming out of the bottom of the spout which would then be sucked up by the violent winds into the interior, thereby lighting up the entire tornado. There are a couple of photos of these sorts of tornadoes, including a black and white one at night showing two luminous tornadoes that obviously had to be internally lit. Very cool stuff and my only complaint was there weren't more photos like this, but then these are very rare phenomena.

Also, the maximum winds typically don't exceed 325 miles per hour, and most tornadoes are usually more like 75-125 miles per hour. This is just one of the many very interesting topics covered.

Overall a very cool book on weather, and I'll have more to say about it later when I finish the book.

Best book on weather I've read since Bomar's Texas Weather. As in Bomar's book, the author understands that it's the unusual weather events that are of most interest to most people, and he doesn't fail to disappoint on that score. A must for all weather nuts.

This is an excellent book and affordable. Some other reference books are very expensive and don't have the great photos and data presentations that this book has (I still highly recommend the others, but they are not cheap). This book saves a lot of time and makes it easy to show other people exactly what you are trying to say, and they will be impressed with the quality of this publication. Excellent book in its own right and can easily double as a "coffee table book" and a great conversation starter.

This is an excellent book that should actually be used as an accompying text to a regular weather text. The cartography is superb and the data is listed in an easy to understand fashion

This was a favorite childhood book for me and I was thrilled to be able to buy it for my boys (2 and 4) this Christmas. It has quickly become a favorite of both, especially my two year old. Here's to many happy readings!

I love this book as it is a classic from my childhood and was excited to read it to my two year old son. He also enjoys it and I imagine will like it even more once we get some snow here and he can relate more to the images in the book.

I bought this book for my three boys (aged two to four) hoping it would be as good as the most excellent book "Summer". Sadly, "Snow" is not in the same league. Indeed, it's a bit on the boring side, with forced sounding rhymes that aren't nearly as much fun as those in "Summer". My boys never ask me to read it. Summer, on the other hand, is a frequent, favorite request.

Still, it fits winter and the drawings are enjoyable. While not a must have it still has a place in our library.

I read this book all the time when I was young and was quite thrilled to have found it for my little one. It's so neat to read what is possible to do in the snow, all the while describing it in a rhyme. My favorite part is when they go skiing and the dog slides down on his tail! He's the first to discover the snow and gets his little child friend to come out and play. They go from there and it is just very, very cute. Especially in the end when they put an umbrella on the biggest snowman so he wouldn't melt, but wind up putting snowballs in the freezer to play with another day. Highly recommend!

Two children, a boy and girl, experiment with the lovely things you can do with snow. It is in simply rhyming verse and is a great beginner book for children readers, the expectation of what words are to come are fairly obvious

I especially love the simply drawn and coloured pictures. They are basic but rich. Each character is roundly appealing. We don't get snow where we live but my children run outside just in case. WE often read the two books (snow and summer) at the same time. The same two children doing nice wintry and summery things.

This books rocks. I've read it on a plane, finished it in only a few hours. Cape Weathers (main character) is aces. His character is candid, his thoughts are quick, his story is thrilling. Just like 'his' city - San Francisco. I can strongly recommend this page-turner to everyone who is looking to find a fresh approach to mystery writing. Whether you are from the Bay Area or simply enjoying crime fiction, this new Cape Weather's investigation series is surely entertaining. And while you're at it, go and get Maleeny's second Cape Weather investigation "Beating The Babushka", too.

Having read many things from Maleeny before this (I worked with him years ago, so the content wasn't nearly as fun), I thoroughly enjoyed the journey he took me on around parts of San Francisco I'd only imagined existed! With wonderfully quirky character names and a finely tuned use of wit, this was truly a reading romp I completely enjoyed!

This was a very good debut. I'm a native of San Francisco and his portrayal of The City is dead on. It made me homesick. The characters were realistic and well drawn. This would make a very exciting movie.

I was a little concerned in the beginning of the book when the Japanese-American heroine was described as inheriting her Japanese mothers jade green eyes. All Japanese have brown eyes. They carry no recessive green eyed gene but I stuck with it and within a couple of chapters I was so involved in the plot that I could overlook any minor errors. I am normally a stickler for accuracy as my other reviews will show so my ability to overlook any shows the quality of the book overall.

This is a fun book and very accurate in its portrayal of San Francisco and local San Francisco politics.

This book was entertaining from the first page to the last, introducing us to a new set of interesting and endearing characters. I have found another writer to add to my list of favorites. I eagerly await the next installment, Beating the Babushka!

San Francisco is at once a city of beauty and mystery, of hope and despair. It defies a consistent definition, being more a collection of neighborhoods in occasional uneasy proximity of each other than a cohesive unit. STEALING THE DRAGON, Tim Maleeny's debut novel, successfully captures not only the bright atmosphere of San Francisco but also the darker aspects of its soul, in a manner perhaps previously matched only by Dashiell Hammett.

STEALING THE DRAGON is a crime noir tour of San Francisco's Chinatown, conducted by an occasionally abrasive but nonetheless likable detective and an unforgettable assassin who lead the reader down alleys that are worlds away from the usual tourist haunts. The detective in question is Cape Weathers, an ex-cop who you wouldn't necessarily want to pal around with but who nonetheless would be on the short list of people you could trust to watch your back. Weathers is reluctantly drawn into a homicide investigation when a container ship runs aground on Alcatraz Island. A group of Chinese refugees are on board, along with a brutally murdered crew.

The incident occurs almost simultaneously with the smuggling of a highly valued talisman out of China and the disappearance of Sally, an enigmatic and dangerous associate of Weathers. The Triads, an ancient and powerful alliance of crime entities, want that talisman, and the dots have been connected to Sally and Weathers. Bodies begin piling up, and soon the police --- at least some of them --- are after Weathers as well. In the best tradition of noir private eyes, Maleeny has assembled an intriguing cast of secondary characters to help Weathers navigate his way through a dark and deadly maze where few can be trusted and no one is safe.

While Maleeny skillfully leads his reader through a complex plot, the real star of STEALING THE DRAGON is Chinatown itself. He takes his characters far off the well-treaded paths of the visitor tours and wanders down the alleys that are usually seen only momentarily, if at all, as the buses speed by. Maleeny's compelling descriptions match his plot points for intrigue, resulting in a work that is part noir thriller and part exotic travelogue, and that reads like a collaboration between the aforementioned Hammett and Sax Rohmer.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

THIS SIMPLY LITTLE BOOK IS DIFFERENT & WE R GLAD WE HAVE IT! GREAT IDEA OF SHOWING HOW SOMETHING AS SMALL AS A SINGLE SNOWFLAKE CAN QUICKLY BECOME SO MUCH MORE!!!

This is a great book to read to students as the first snowfall is coming down. I have older students in ESOL but they are learning English and often come from other countries so reading an easy book is can be interesting and meaningful to them. This is a beautiful book they can practice reading on their own later after I have read it to the class. Many of my beginning students have never seen snow before so it is mysterious and very interesting to them. They love it!

We (our two boys and ourselves) have checked this book out from the library countless times. It's about time we had a copy for ourselves AND that I send a copy to my NYC dwelling, 45 year old big brother who still believes in the magic of snow that all children know. The boy in this story reminds me of him.
An all time favorite. Perfect in its simplicity.

A perfect review would be like the painting "White on White" a blank to consider as a metaphor for snow, which really that's what the book is constructing- a paper representation of a first snowfall. And it would fit Shulevitz to leave a blank for "Snow" , I think he might "get it". As a teacher, I have several of his books and each has a particular quality I like to call "space" , they are creations of places that seem frozen and afar, a kind of wonder always over takes me as I read these books to kids. The reader becomes superfluous somehow. It's a very hard thing to find words for, his stories connect in another place, beyond text, "in place". In general if you are a teacher, as I am, working on the construct of "setting" with young children his books will allow you to focus on this in a way where internal image can be discussed. 1st graders after reading always tell me they can "go inside" his spaces and find a "reality. Lately I have spent a great deal of time thinking about reality. Going inside of writing and images and finding a "reality" is a unique construct to work to build with students. It is the heart of literature, unique to talk about with students and this author allows you to go to a "there" . And the there is not a there of this earth, it is a there of literary creation. Also as a teacher of children in a second language I notice they connect to these books. Really connect. With "SNOW" they had me read it twice and insisted on writing poems. Insisted.

As for "Snow" it is the telling of adult and child perspectives. In snow. When I grew up in West Virginia as flakes fell my brother and I would go out to see, to see if they were sticking, praying of course for their layering our world.Mum and Dad praying to be left in peace.Their world of inconvenience so much a part of having to deal with it in traveling to work. Here in the story a boy, who remains just a boy, just watches the flakes and listens to the adults predict the possibility of getting a blanket of snow. For my students who live coastal in CA with no possibility of snow, despite the current snap of cold killing our beautiful tropical plants, these children need to read of this wondrous time in order to experience it. That is such a thing for me to create for them. It invites a teacher sharing of experience. I cannot overstate the beauty of the illustrations as they show the snows arrival to this world, he is, page by page unfolding this, this place "somewhere" which by "reading" the images grows into an internal space place. Ah....he is so good.

Snow is a purity so many forget, humans need this. It places us in the world, stills our power, reminds of nature, is other worldly. It is trans formative. And this text goes to that place. Children know weather. It is real to them in a way I like to call naive understanding. They are feeling "SNOW" like poets..

When reading this book I always fold and cut snowflakes with the kids. This year no child had ever done this before in my room. Not a single one. There is a champion book of snowflake cutting patterns in a Scholastic book. It's remarkable to cut snowflakes with 1st graders, study the crystal forms from internet images, look inside this text to see the images in "Snow" of snowflakes, gentle, beautiful forms to grace the classroom windows. I really can't imagine not using this book it is that much a part of my program with 1st graders here in Oxnard at Hathaway......
Snow comes. It transforms. It is the silence and white blanket.Beautifully celebrated here in his book.

Everything goes together in this book. The illustrations are simple and evocative, the text is minimal, you need to read it with weight to convey the mood; the gray, unremarkable city populated with gray, unremarkable adults is uninspiring. A little boy sees one snowflake (yes, it's there, look hard) and gets excited. Not so the adults: 'grandfather with beard', 'man with hat', and 'woman with umbrella' brush him off. The city is still gray. WE are gray, but the boy believes and indeed the snowflakes keep coming until they begin to build up on the street and buildings. The boy and his Mother Goose companions get happier and the illustrations get brighter. The dour adults are driven indoors, the boy dances with delight. Imagination, enthusiasm, and hope have triumphed.
With few words and understated illustrations the book is amazingly alive!
My only reservation is that many of the pictures are rather too small for a story group to really appreciate from a distance. In order for the children to take note of the details (such as one lone snowflake) it is necessary to bring the pages down to each child for a closer look. This does bleak the reading flow. A few unfolding pages when applicable (as in "Papa, Please Get The Moon For Me")would go a long way to making this story more visual. Aside from that little quibble I think this is a delightful book for children.