It's Raining Fish and Spiders

December 1, 2012
Grades 5-8 Weather junkies and those who like to scrutinize charts will be entertained by this folksy work, which is chock-full of information, lists, and accounts of personal experiences involving extreme weather by meteorologist and TV personality Evans. Included are sections on tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards, with a good amount of information on each and a healthy dose of photos and diagrams sprinkled throughout. Each section includes a lengthy True Bill Evans Weather Story detailing Evans' harrowing experiences with each type of phenomenon. The final section is a hodgepodge of information and lists about droughts, floods, tsunamis, volcanoes, and earthquakes, and additional extreme weather, such as thunderstorms. The strange occurrence of creatures falling from the sky is covered only briefly. Although the cover proclaims that experiments are included, there is only one experiment and a few lists of websites to find others. The blue-toned photos might be a deterrent to some. Enjoyable for browsing but of limited use for research or reference because of the absence of an index.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)