Weather Books

"You haven't had a major tornado in over three years? Aren't you about due for a big one?" Aaron asked.

Mr. Black looked amused. "Well, son, you just might be right," he answered. "Some folks call Cottonwood `Tornado Alley,' so maybe we are overdue."

Then Mr. Black looked frightened. "Wait a minute. Aren't you the famous Barclay family? Whose trips always end in disaster?" After Aaron nodded, Mr. Black shuddered involuntarily, mumbled something about making sure that his tornado shelter was well stocked, and hurried away.

OK, I made up that last part, but regular readers know what to expect when the Barclay family is on the scene!

"But I don't think there's anything to worry about. We get tornado warnings a lot around here. But we don't get many tornadoes."

I don't know about you, but I'M betting that SOMETIME during this adventure, they WILL!

Ed Hanson and Saddleback Educational Publishing have come up with a brilliant concept for solving a very serious problem: the great decline in reading among today's students. Their solution? Put out readers that are essentially suspense-filled or mystery-filled juvenile series books like the famous Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys series of old.

This confronts both of the major problems with more traditional readers: if they are not mind-numbingly dull, they are excruciatingly didactic, cramming some important "teachings" whether moral, religious, or (these days) politically correct down the throats of children so hard as to turn them off of reading for good.

In this volume Ed Hanson delivers another good outing. Besides giving us a suspenseful story of tornado survival, we get to see Aaron discover girls!

Plus, for what they are intended to be, reading textbooks, they are wonderful. The fact that children who learn to read better and to love reading from these books may still find them skimpy fare for pleasure reading is not entirely bad, assuming their teachers quickly move them on to bigger and better things in the school library or the bookstore if necessary.

The previous book in the series is Mountain Blizzard (Barclay Family Adventure Ser., Bk. 7), and the next book in the series is The Pass (Barclay Family Adventure Ser., Bk. 9).

This is a great little book for young minds. My 3 1/2 year old is suddenly fascinated with tornadoes and this book describes them very well. The author definitely explains things in child's terms and has a glossary in the back for larger terms used. THe pictures were great, too! I would recommend this to anyone especially young children. There are 7 other titles in the series also. Great price as well.

I bought this for my 3 1/2 year old future storm chaser. It has too many words for his attention span but is great for older kids. My little one did like looking at the pictures though. The pictures were very nice and the author takes the time to include how to pronounce some of the words, like mesocyclone, as well as define them. He also includes a glossary and fascinating facts section at the end. I find it to be a very comprehensive book for young weather enthusiasts.

This book is very nice in that it is full of pictures and descriptions of tornadoes from how they begin to how they end and all the things inbetween. I bought it for my 3 1/2 year old future storm chaser and he really liked the pictures. Though it lacks a glossary like other books of similar titles it does have little easy experiments the kids can do that explain what is happening on the page. It also has a section on most pages called Disaster Data that explains different aspects of the weather conditions. I found it to be overall a very nice book.

James Nemec gives us a comprehensive portrayal of how our emotions both individually and collectively affect our bodies and that of nature around the world. Mr. Nemec dicusses his methods during craniosacral therapy sessions which help us as individuals release our emotions physically. He also teaches us how our actions and reactions to world events can also cause an effect in nature and its behavior to our world environment.
I believe this book, in all its simplicity, serves as a guide and as a gentle reminder to all of us on how the principles of thought and emotion can manifest.

The Traveler's Weather Guide is arranged in a very clear and concise way. Every city I have looked for has been documented. And the average temperatures are accurate! For traveling purposes it has proven correct every time. I am planning my wedding from out of state. This book has been such a great help with deciding on dates, according to the extremely hot weather, in Palm Desert, CA where my wedding will take place. The only thing I wish it had, that it doesn't, are the average times of sunrise and sunset during the months of the year in each location.

If you are going to be fly fishing in Colorado or Wyoming you absolutely must track down a copy of this out-of-print book. It crams an incredible amount of useful information into 149 pages of easy to read prose, charts and illustrations -- nearly all of which is as valid today as when first printed in 1987. Wish I could find more copies to use as gifts for friends!

Tsunami Alert! by Niki Walker. A tsunami wave can often seem deceptively harmless in its size and power, but the damage it causes can be earth shattering. Scientists have difficulty predicting when and where these killer waves will strike next. In this timely new book, young readers will learn about the factors that contribute to the making of a tsunami, where in the world they strike, warning systems, and what we can do to stay safe.

Tsunami: Helping Each Other is a picturebook about the real-life tragedy of the tsunami that devastated Asia and killed thousands of people. Author Ann Morris and Unicef's senior communication adviser Heidi Larson asked themselves, what happened to the families that survived? How had the children's lives changed? In search of answers, they traveled to Thailand, which had 5,000 confirmed tsunami deaths and another 2,900 still missing. They visited families and temporary schools, and saw the work that international agencies and relief teams were doing to help people get on with their lives. Illustrated throughout with full-color photographs, Tsunami: Helping Each Other is not about the destruction of a natural tragedy, but rather the positive influence that human beings can have on one another, and the hope they can spread, when they come together to rebuild, help the living, and pay tribute to those who have passed on. Highly recommended.

I found this book interesting, even though it was written before the major tsunami of 2005. It told me that tsunamis have happened before and that they happen often enough. It is just amazing how strong the last one was.