View source for 50 Things You Should Know About: Wild Weather by Anna Claybourne

{{infobox2
|title=50 Things You Should Know About: Wild Weather
|author=Anna Claybourne
|reviewer=John Lloyd
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=A fine book for the school library, but not perhaps one for every home's shelves.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=80
|publisher=QED Publishing
|date=February 2016
|isbn=9781784933043
|website=http://annaclaybourne.co.uk/books/
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Oh, this takes me back.  Out of all the things we learn at school and profess to never want to need as an adult, the water cycle is one that I had forgotten about, until now.  It forms the basis of a lot of our weather, after all – the way landmasses and seas warm the air above them differently, thus causing motion in the shape of winds and altering atmospheric pressure, that we call weather.  And from the gentlest high pressure, that someone somewhere will always deem too hot, to the most furious electrical storm, weather is certainly something a lot of people like to talk about.  Is this book the ideal place to learn the basics of such a thing? 

Well, yes and no.  It certainly does piece together the story accurately, with the help of ooh, about six different copies of that water cycle.  Repetition is fine for learning, of course, but in a book that has quite a small amount of text it stands out.  What also stands out, more importantly, is the lively fashion of the presentation.  I'd nearly go as far as haphazard in talking about it, for some pages are so bitty and exuberant I failed to work out how to actually read them – do I first tackle this paragraph, that box-out, that flashy arrow up the side of the page, or those bits there? 

That way of presenting the information didn't find much favour with me, particularly, and I think for the home audience this book would be thought of along the same lines – it looks great and child attention-friendly, but might not hold the full story.  Well, educationalists would perhaps know why the pages are so fractured and they would be able to approve of the book more.  What you get here, in presenting a smorgasbord of facts (there certainly are more than fifty, all told, making a mockery of the title), is a springboard for further study.  You can't just copy out the text of this book and bingo there's your homework.  You need to piece this paragraph to that block and work everything out. 

And with all that is presented here – from the basics of air currents to the most extreme, record-breaking weather and much more – you can rest assured I mean that 'everything'.  The picture editors have done a sterling job, too, for the pages have a complete global outlook and the imagery is brilliant.  So to an adult, then, it's down to you and whether you want the spoon-feeding old style children's non-fiction, or the kinetic page that demands you join the dots yourself before you reach full understanding.  This is definitely a good book concerning the subject for the under-twelves, and has been produced to a perfectly fine standard, but it may be too trendy and modern to be accepted by all. 

I must thank the publishers for my review copy. 

If you want a more practical book for getting the young out and about in all weathers, you might enjoy [[Outdoor Wonderland by Josie Jeffery]]. 

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