Cotton Cloud Refuses To Rain
Elizabeth F. Hill and Hannah George
Five Quills

We in the UK seem to talk about the weather much more frequently than elsewhere, at least that’s my ecperience. Here’s a story showing how weather shapes so much of what we do.

Cotton Cloud’s over-riding desire is to make people happy. To that end she consults other clouds – Cumulus, Stratus and Cirrus for advice. Cumulus, the puffy one teaches Cotton how to make floating cloud castles, Stratus shows her how to hug the horizon by hanging low, whereas Cirrus trains Cotton to flick her tail as she dances across the sky. However, Nimbostratus, the one Cotton didn’t speak to, insists Cotton should learn to rain. Now Cotton knows full well that rain makes people sad and so she ignores Nimbo’s advice, spending her days getting pleasure from seeing people’s happy responses to her playful images and behaviour.

For a while everything is fine and dandy but one day along blows Wind telling Cotton that rain is needed for the plants to grow. Wind however gets rebuffed. Conditions worsen for plants and their growers: people’s delight diminishes with every passing day.

Will Cotton ever realise that, rather than blaming others, she needs to change her ways? Fortunately some thunderous words from Nimbo cause her to weep and …

Both funny and educative, this story demonstrates the importance of both balance in nature and friendship. Children will have fun looking at all the details in Hannah George’s digitally worked illustrations as well as enjoying the different weather- and geographical-related characters and their changing expressions.

A good book to share with a KS1 class especially during a weather-related topic.