Cloud Country

August 24, 2015
This entry in the Pixar Animation Studios Artist Showcase series stars a
heroine at an important crossroads. It’s Formation School Graduation Day, and all the cloudlets are expected to show their ability to make clouds that go by the book: stratus, cumulonimbus, and so forth. But Gale, a cloudlet who loves nothing better than to gaze down at the Earth, can only make clouds in “Land Below” shapes: a dog, a tugboat, a lamb. Certain that she’s a failure, Gale discovers instead that the ability to make what Becker (the Mouse and Bear series) calls “shapes the world can dream on” is just what her school is looking for. Klocek creates his cloud world out of voluminous, sculptural shapes and shades of white, lavender, and gold, an approach with some shortcomings; the characters feel more statuesque than cloudlike, and the soft palette often makes it difficult to find the focus of each spread. But the book raises an interesting question: What’s more important—technical prowess or the capacity to inspire? Ages 3–5. Author’s agent: Edward Necarsulmer IV, Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner Literary Agency.

July 15, 2015
Who makes those clouds in the sky, anyway? Writer Becker and Pixar art director and story conceptualist Klocek are pretty sure it's a bunch of kids. Klocek's artwork is top-shelf; all the action takes place in the air, so the views even on the endpapers are magnificent: a patchwork of fields, a meandering stream, birds in flight below readers. In the sky, adrift on clouds that their elders crafted, are cloudlets, little cloud-makers-to-be. First, they must pass their exams at the Formation School, their work to be judged by the Guardians. Young Gale has been neglecting her studies; she spends her time mooning, as it were, at the Earth and what is happening below. When she tries to conjure a cumulonimbus, it doesn't tower and threaten, it looks like an elephant. Her cumulus looks like a tugboat, and others clouds look like dogs, frogs, and bears. Things look bleak for Gale until the Guardians applaud her efforts: "We are so glad to finally find you. We've been waiting for another Daydream Cloud for a long time." Steering clear of mawkishness, Becker and Klocek dive straight into the imagination. Klocek's cloud characters are marshmallow puffy with giant, waft-y hairdos; daubs of paint (presumably digital) in varying tones of slate blue, lavender, and gold, with genial, fat cheeks and expressive faces. A crackerjack salute to the creations of the mind. (Picture book. 3-5)

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November 1, 2015

K-Gr 2-Gale, a cloudlet, is nearing graduation day from Formation School. Her classmates seem to have their cloud formations down after much practice. Bluster, for example, whirls round and round, and "everyone [knows] he wants to make funnel clouds when he grows up." Gale, on the other hand, has spent too much time watching the land below and its beautiful geography and animals of all kinds. When it's her turn to perform for the Guardian judges, she just can't conjure up a decent cumulus. She can create only images of dogs, tugboats, bears, and frogs. Dejected, she admits she's spent too little time practicing and too much time gazing at the Earth below. Not to worry, however. The Guardians have been waiting a long time for another Daydream Cloud to join their ranks. These special clouds create "fish and boats, waterfalls, and crows" and even puffy castles in the air, "the best shapes for the Land Below to dream on." The illustrations feature soft images of childlike cloudlets, primarily presented in purple, yellow, and orange hues. Rendered in ink, they are impressionistic in nature. The story, however, lacks a good central conflict to hold readers' interest, and the ending is predictable. VERDICT A supplemental purchase.-Roxanne Burg, Orange County Public Library, CA

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