24th August Weather Complaint Day

In the Northern Hemisphere they  celebrate Weather Complaint Day on  24th August , when it's finally hot enough to complain about high temperatures! Many of us are still in the habit of complaining about weather and here in Sydney I think we have every right at the moment to be complaining about the rain. It is nonstop and everything is so soggy. Who never whined about the weather? Whether it's raining, cold, or hot, more than ever it seems extreme! Everywhere is affected by climate change and the extremes remind us things have changed weather-wise. 

This is a good time to do a display of all those weather books that are sitting on the library shelves and there is a lot of them. Here are some of the more recent ones:

September Cloud Appreciation Day

Cloud Appreciation Day is on the second Friday in September. This year that will be on 12th September. It's an annual event organised by the Cloud Appreciation Society where people around the world are encouraged to spend time appreciating the beauty of clouds.

Yesterday someone asked me whether I have written about clouds before and I realised that I hadn't sourced a day to celebrate clouds which is a pity because there are so many children's books about clouds. I know it is a long time till September, but just file it away for future use or have a cloud display now.

Information books:

A bit of both:

Stories:

Two biographies:

Too expensive but look out for:

Coming soon:

23rd March World Meteorological Day

 

On the 23rd March last year, and then again on the 2nd March this year, ironically I wrote about the flooding here on the East Coast of Australia. Had I known then that that was World Meteorological Day, on the 23rd March,  the heading would have been very different. I did mention it in 2010, but it is so much more relevant now so I am writing about it late, but so as I do remember next year. 

In the library we have two very good picture book biographies about people who had a big role in meteorology.

• The Man Who Named the Clouds  by Julie Hannah and Joan Holub and Paige Billin-Frye

This is the story of Luke Howard, the man who named the clouds and we are still using those names.

• Breaking Through the Clouds by Sandra Nickel and Helena Perez Garcia    

This is the story of Joanne Simpson the first woman to get a doctorate in meteorology and who helped us understand how weather works today.

Of course we also have a considerable number of weather books which also deal with weather forecasting (it is weather forecasters day on 5th February) and meteorology.

• What Will the Weather Be? by Linda Dewitt and Carolyn Croll

• Shapes in the Sky  by Josepha Sherman and Omarr Wesley

• Weather Words by Gail Gibbons

• Weather  by Catriona Clarke and Kuo Kang Chen

• Weather by Kristin Baird Rattini

• Curious Questions and Answers about Weather by Philip Steele

• What's the Weather? by Fraser and Judith Ralston

• Look at the Weather by Britta Teckentrup

• Weather Robots by Christine Zuchora-Walske

Plenty to start working out what meteorology is! And, for something a little different, this book 

Feelings Forecasters: A creative approach to managing emotions  by Maria Merce Conangla and Jaume Soler will give you much food for thought and some fun activities to do with students. It likens emotions to the weather and presents parallels or analogies between the world around us and our inner world.

4th February 2011

Today is Russell Hoban's birthday, but I wrote about him last year and have nothing new to say. Instead I want to tell you about a book I read today which has birthdays and weather as themes and given the extremes in weather in Australia at the moment the children need some light relief. Meltdown by Australian author Barbara Ker Wilson and illustrator David Cox was the perfect book for the very hot day we had today. The book tells the story of Andy's birthday. His mother has decided that there will not be a party this year and instead organises a surprise icecream birthday cake. It turns out to be a very hot day and the family are caught in a traffic jam... Get it from your library and find out how the problem is solved.