Counting Down to Earth Day: Day 6

The Cloud Spinner

By Michael Catchpool

Illustrated by Alison Jay

Alfred A. Knopf, 2012

$16.99, ages 4-8, 32 pages

A greedy king has every cloud drawn from the sky and spun into clothes, not realizing that without those clouds, the rain won't come.

In this imaginative picture book, author Michael Catchpool raises issues of over farming, while artist Alison Jay charms us with nature's beauty.

When a pompous king learns of a boy's gift of spinning clouds into thread, he orders him to pull enough clouds to weave a fancy wardrobe for him and his family.

The boy, who's never taken more than he needs from the clouds, warns the king that it isn't wise to make so many clothes from clouds.

"Enough is enough and not one stitch more," as his mother has taught him, for without clouds, rivers won't fill, trees will die of thirst and hills will turn brown.

But the king cannot see beyond his immediate pleasure to the damage this could cause and demands that the boy take to his spinning wheel without delay.

Gus is a Tree

Written by Claire Babin

Illustrated by Oliver Tallec

Enchanted Lion, 2008

$14.99 each, ages 3-8, 32 pages

As a boy rests against a tree, he dreams that his feet have rooted into the ground and he's sprouted branches in this exhilarating French import.

In this second book in the Gus nature series, Gus steals away to sit quietly under a tree while other children in his schoolyard peel around and play.

He loves the grooves of the tree's bark, the way the leaves shimmer above him and the earthy fragrance of the wood.

With his back against the tree, he closes his eyes, reaches up with his hands to stroke the bark and remembers a walk through the forest with his father.

As memories of twigs crackling underfoot return, slumber takes him and Gus dreams.

In his imagination, he's a big old tree with thick branches for arms and bark striped like the sleeves of his shirt.

33. That's Amazing!

I Dreamed of Flying Like the Bird, written and photographed by Robert B. Haas, National Geographic, $17.95, ages 9-12, 64 pages. As Haas leans out of the doorless opening of his aircraft with a camera lens to his eye, he snaps wild moments that only a bird flying by would normally see. In this inspiring journey across the surface of wild places, photographer Haas shares pictures of animals in herds and hunting for prey that he took from helicopters and small planes over remote parts of the world. In one outing, the National Geographic photographer captures flamingos on a mystical run across the water. As they prepare to take off like planes, they run faster and faster until their feet seems to barely touch the surface.

Elsie's Bird

By Jane Yolen

Illustrated by David Small

Philomel Books, 2010

$17.99, ages 4-8, 40 pages

Worried she'll lose herself in the silence of the prairie, Elsie hides away in her Nebraska house until a pet canary gives her the courage to reach out to the wild world around her.

In this stellar collaboration by Caldecott winners Yolen and Small, a motherless girl is uprooted from the only home she knows and learns to connect to a new way of life by opening her senses to the subtle sounds of the grasslands.

Elsie never wanted to leave her home in Boston. She loved the raucous sound of gulls, the clop of horse hooves and the trill of city song birds. With pigtails flying, she would jump rope and sing the birds' songs back to them.

But after Elsie's mama died, Papa couldn't shake his sadness. He longed to get away from Boston and any reminders of what used to be, so he tells Elsie, his only child, that they will head west to find happiness again.

Elsie, however, isn't anxious to leave and she's surprised by how far they have to travel by train. As one day of travel slips into another, Elsie worries about what awaits her and wonders if she should have stayed behind with her grandparents.

But having lost her mother, Elsie couldn't have parted from Papa. So she tries to focus on her canary, Timmy Tune, who sings to her from his birdcage, though even he can't distract her from the clack of train wheels, which seems to go on and on.

When they finally arrive in Nebraska, their sod home is 10 miles from any town and looks as lonely as Elsie feels. "Here there is only grass and sky and silence," she writes to Nana and Nonny. At night the only thing Elsie hears is her own crying.