Hurricane

I loved this book. I have sons and we’ve had a wonderful cat and the illustrations of them in this book are delightful. Team Cat Approves 🐈

I like to collect natural disaster and weather books that can help children be prepared for extreme weather.

This is a fantastic option, preparation, a power outage, a downed tree, and clean up all covered in one book with a hefty dose of imaginary play.

David Wiesner tells the story about 2 brothers who are about to experience their first hurricane. Their parents prepare everything from grocery shopping, torches, candles, etc. After the night of the hurricane, the two brothers found one of the huge elm trees lying in the garden; the hurricane has uprooted it. But they do not worry about the tree but use their imagination and see it as an incentive for playing. In their imagination they are traveling to places very far away....
A recommendable book for boosting the children's imagination a little bit and take away the fear of terrible thunderstorms.

I really enjoyed this book and I thought the imagination that the characters had in this book was awesome! The illustrations were also amazing! Basically, what happens in this story is a bad storm comes through and knocks down a tree and the brothers end up playing with this knocked down tree and have all of these adventures until one day the tree is no longer there because it got cleaned up. Then at the end another storm is about to come through so the brothers are hoping it will knock the tree over in their yard so they can keep it there to play with. I think this would be a great book to use in an elementary classroom as a read aloud when talking about weather, specifically hurricanes or bad storms.

I enjoyed this book for many reasons. The writing was very engaging and descriptive. It was engaging because the plot line spoke to me. The children in the story are witnessing a hurricane happen outside, and are very curious about what will happen to the world around them. The author was very descriptive and it made it easy to picture was going on in the story. It brought me back to all the times a hurricane hit my homeland when I was a child. For example ‘David listened to the walls of the house creaking in the wind. ‘If it’s like this now, what is it going to be like when the hurricane hits?’ Suddenly the lights went out.” Here I could picture exactly what was going on. Later on in the story the children describe the damage show more done as a jungle. They took advantage of this to play and use their creativity in the damage. I also enjoyed how they took something so negative into something positive. For instance, “’Look at those big limbs and branches! It’s like a jungle to play safari in before.” David didn’t wait for an answer. He was already climbing the fallen tree. David fearlessly led the expedition into the very hear of the jungle.” The illustrations also helped to interpret the characters imaginations.The concept of this story is to make something beautiful out of something damaged, show less

I think this book brings the magic to life when a child is really in a Hurricane. Hurricanes can be awful, devastating occurrences, but as a child they can be fun. The kids in this book use the negative influences of the bad weather to have fun and use their imagination to entertain themselves. It definitely brought me back to my childhood. This could relieve the anxiety or fear a child might have about bad weather or could just inspire them to use their imagination wherever.

I liked this book for three reasons. The first is because of the realistic illustrations. The author relies more on the pictures to tell the stories instead of the text, which brings the story to life. Some of the illustrations are so realistic that they look like a picture instead of a drawing. The second reason I like this story because of the relatable characters. The story is about two boys who after a hurricane find a tree that has fallen and begin to play on and around it. The story emphasizes the children’s imagination while playing, which is what kids do in real life. The last reason I like this story is because of the writing. Even though the author does not solely rely on the text, the writing is neat, organized, and able to show more portray a message of friendship and positive attitudes. show less

Summary: "Hurricane" is about two brothers who experienced a hurricane. The day after the hurricane they find that a huge tree was knocked down in their neighbor's yard. The brothers play in the tree and use their imagination to pretend they are different places such as the jungle and outer space. However, their neighbors removed the tree. The boys felt horrible until they found out another storm was coming and the tree in their yard might fall. This means it could possibly stay since it would fall in their yard and not their neighbors.

Review: In my opinion, the central message of this story is a person's imagination can make something good out of anything bad. This is because the boys fell in love with a fallen tree that was a result show more of a hurricane. For the boys, the tree was a "private place, big enough for secret dreams, small enough for shared adventure." However, for their neighbors it did not have the same effect since they removed it. In addition, I believe this book is very relatable. I connected to this book because I have also found something as simple as a tree and created a private place to let my imagination roam free. show less