Rain

Rain by Peter Spier

Rain is a story that I selected because the title was similar to Rain Makes Applesauce. It also goes into the next type of storybook I chose to blog about for this week; wordless picture books.

When the reader first opens the book, they see a storm brewing in the left hand corner of the illustration, and two children playing outside in their sandbox. The following page has the title of the book and other information about it and the author, however now it has begun to rain. The pages following this one have a hard rain storm coming down, and the two children rush inside to get their proper gear on for the weather. These pages are another title page with the vital information about the book including publishers and the cities where this book has been published. I thought it was cool how it didn't start the storm over after the series of title pages and instead went right into the excited children getting ready to go have an adventure in the rain.

This book was interesting in that it was so detailed in showing us the curiosity of two children as they explored a huge rain storm, and all of it's effects on things in the outside world. They observe intense details, such as the mushy sand filled with puddles of water in their once dry sandbox, the way the drops form ripples on the pavement, and the beads of water that get caught on a very large spider web. They continue to play in the storm until it is time to come in for dinner and dry off. They look at the storm which was once friendly in the daylight in it's dark and harsh state as cars and people brave it while the children go to bed. The next day, the children have a whole new world to discover, as they look around to see what the storm has left behind in their backyard. An extremely detailed story with a lot of potential use in the classroom, however my next set of books will help me determine how to read wordless picture books aloud to children, or alternatives to how to use them.